Asela Perera – These Years (Album Review)

The physical copies of this album that were up for pre-order, got sold out in less that a week. Now, isn’t that saying something?

This album has been teased on the interwebs for quite a while since the beginning of this year, starting with “These Years”, “The Art of Getting By” and in the recent past “Fire/Desire” which ended up being a YES Home Grown Top 15 hit and received considerable airplay on TNL Radio’s Criminal Records Most Wanted.

If you thought his EP “Evenings Under The Sun” found this Colombo based singer/songwriter wearing his heart on every song, then you are in for a dive into some serious emotional depth, clever lyrics intertwined with a sort of simplicity that can only be Asela Perera’s.

We’d like to call this album in short “A very personal, music snapshot from a broken yet painfully mending heart..it’s the sort of stuff that lonely evenings and most daydreams are made up of”.

“The Art Of Getting By” starts off the album and this single resonates of a single from the past called “Once” except on a much lighter note and we guess you could call this a “tricky” sort of song for the head too (semi happy tone & pensive lyrics) and it does come with an aftertaste.

We hardly found a let down moment on this album since it’s essentially and almost on the same lyrical themes and while the productions are good, we think a little more of that “Warm Feel” , a slight fattening of guitars and maybe a little attention in the mixing process on certain tracks would have added well but like we mentioned the productions on this is good. There are no instrument complexities in this album and we appreciate that! Simple additions of Cello, Flute & percussion just add to the brilliant sonic artistry.

Some of the strongest moments on this album include “A Foregone Conclusion”, “Head & Heart” (the shortest single on the album) & “Courage”

In conclusion, Sri Lanka this IS one of the best albums of 2015 *Hand Down and we give this a 9/10.

Album Credits:

– Savini Chandrasinghe :

• Performed Cello on A Foregone Conclusion

– Natasha Senanayake : 

• Cello Arrangement for A Foregone Conclusion
• Flute Arrangement & Performance for A Foregone Conclusion
• Vocal Harmonies & Vocal Outro for A Foregone Conclusion
• Piano & Flute Arrangement & Performance for A Foregone Conclusion (Alternate Version)
• Piano Arrangement & Performance for Aftermath (Alternate Version)

– Shehan Rodrigo :

• Percussion Arrangement & Performance for A Foregone Conclusion

– Aayushi Jain :

• Vocal Arrangement & Performance for Fire/Desire

– Shehan Rodrigo :

• Album Artwork Direction

– Rusiru Madhawa :

• Album Cover Photography