By: Fenton Wright, Web Services Coordinator
Artist: Cameron Winter
Album: Live At Carnegie Hall
Favorite Tracks: “Emperor XIII in Shades,” “If You Turn Back Now,” and “Nina + Field of Cops”
For Fans Of: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Nick Drake
A Voice You Can’t Escape
You might be wondering: “Why am I hearing about this guy everywhere?” “Why does he even matter?” “How does someone like Cameron Winter get the opportunity to perform at such a prestigious venue like Carnegie Hall in the first place?” You’d be right to ask those questions. He’s a rock artist, and the frontman of an experimental band nonetheless! Why does he deserve to grace the same stage that a genius like Bob Dylan performed on? To me, it’s simple. For so many people, Cameron Winter represents a new excitement in the music industry. He personifies this ambiguous idea of a rush of youth that, to some, the music industry desperately needed for so long. In short, he’s Gen Z’s first rock icon. He has a lot to live up to.
Performed and filmed in December of last year, Live At Carnegie Hall marks a tonal shift from the traditional loud, in-your-face music that we associate with Cameron Winter. On Live At Carnegie Hall, Winter delivers a beautiful vocal performance as he invites us to reckon with our insecurities, selfishness, and detachment from the world around us. When compared to his studio album Heavy Metal and projects with Geese, Winter comes across as a much more mature and reflective person as he hunches over his Steinway grand piano in one of the most historic music venues of all time.
Hints of Dylan and Cohen
In his solo work, Cameron Winter’s songwriting and lyricism rise above the rest of his artistic qualities as the most important traits that contribute to his genius. In a way very similar to Leonard Cohen, Winter combines references to Christianity with everyday life, creating this absurd juxtaposition between the mundane and the fantastical. Winter positions himself as a muse of some sort, retelling these stories from his own perspective like he’s giving an oral history of past events. In this piano-driven confessional music, Winter exists at his most vulnerable and honest.
On “Emperor XIII in Shades,” one of the new songs on the album, Winter makes countless references to the Christian story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is one of the denser songs on the album. In one line, he says, “It was a long day for Jesus/ And a quiet night in California,” implying that our perceived hardships in life are nothing compared to what Jesus had to go through or what other people across the world living in war zones experience every day.
He isn’t just rambling either. Winter shares an internal sense of detachment and discomfort. He experiences this while others are struggling to survive, and he lives so comfortably. It is in this tension between our boring lives and the unthinkably difficult lives of people in worse situations than us that Winter imparts feelings of selfishness, ending with the line “I don’t like what happened to Jesus/ But I sure do like Saturday morning.”
Another one of the new songs, “If You Turn Back Now,” grapples with love through a biblical lens. He equates the toxic side of a relationship to the devil, singing:
“The devil is working even in the rain when it’s pouring/ The devil’s work begins early every morning/ Yeah, the devil is real, and he’s living in heaven/ The devil’s gonna love you to death if you let him/ The devil will argue, he will beg you to stay/ But I belong to him who gave me away.”
This line, “the devil will argue, he will beg you to stay,” to me, is one of the more powerful lines on the album—though every song is just as beautiful as this one—and creates such a vivid picture of toxic love habits that you can’t help but choke up and want to cry.
Remastering Old Favorites
Another highlight of the live album, even more so than some of the newer songs, is the older ones. Winter does not just play the songs as they were on 2024s Heavy Metal; he enhances them through his slow, methodical piano playing.
Perhaps this is no more apparent than through “Love Takes Miles.” The studio version has a fuzzy, upbeat feel to it, while the live version on this album drains you. By the end of this song, I was exhausted. The gasps for air Winter takes in between lyrics added to this feeling. He sounds like, to some extent, he has given up his quest for love. His repetition of “miles” in the final refrain sounds like a man who, upon recognizing how much he still has to do to be able to love properly, wants to quit.
This approach happens on all of the older songs on the album. In the last four songs, Winter sounds emotionally and physically drained. The ending of “$0” feels like a relief. Not because the album was bad, but because the rollercoaster of emotions it puts you on makes you want it to stop. It is so overwhelming that even Winter himself tried to escape offstage through a side door. As “Vines” ends, you are left stunned. For me, it has been the only album I have been able to listen to since its release.
What Comes Next For the Heavy Metal Man
Before we talk about what is on the horizon for Cameron Winter, take a moment to catch your breath. Ok… Coming up for the Brooklyn-based artist is a continuation of his Getting Killed Again Tour with Geese. The tour started in September and runs through November, with some of the final dates being in Boston on November 10 and 11.
That’s not where the Cameron Winter content stops, though. November 20 marks the first showing of the Live At Carnegie Hall concert movie filmed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Six showings are lined up for Boston at Coolidge Corner for December 8-10. Be sure to check out all of Cameron Winter’s projects and grab tickets to the movie if you can!
