Goodmorning Valentine

Young bands face a bevy of insurmountable hurdles in the recording process.

Some face financial holdups. Others experience premature group breakups. Goodmorning Valentine suffered from the desire for perfection.

For 14 months, the band recorded, ripped apart and recorded again its sophomore effort, Steady Your Hands.

The result is a CD by a local group that sounds like it should be bursting into the national consciousness.

The Akron-based band has played memorable sets at the Lime Spider in the past two years, and the experience shows on Steady Your Hands. Their sound has grown by leaps and bounds since its first release, Easter Park.

Musically, most of the songs on Steady Your Hands could fit on Belle and Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister. But unlike Belle and Sebastian, Goodmorning Valentine's music has a rich sonic depth thanks to singer Joey Beltram's fluttering but passionate voice. Beltram's ethereal coo carries the 14-track album through emotional highs and lows. At times, the oft-bearded singer sounds like his heart was just broken; at others, his voice is filled with energy.

The arrangements range from spare to orchestral. On several songs, bassist Elizabeth Allen plays string instruments and sings backup. Both nicely complement Beltram's voice. Guitarist Matt Haas' compassionate hooks steal the album's faster tracks such as Last Year, City Lights and the alt-country Invitation.

Some songs are a bit overproduced. She Comes Saturday is led by a pattering typewriter before it's broken up by a chirping bird, both unnecessary. That is the only holdup on an album that excels at each turn.

But while the band sounds good recorded, its live show is even better. Goodmorning Valentine has always been a group of musically smart overachievers. When the band settles down -- steadies its hands, if you will -- it achieves fully.
- Akron Beacon-Journal

Goodmorning Valentine singer Joey Beltram sounds like a girl. That’s really a compliment, since the guy’s fluttering voice is every bit as powerful an instrument as that of, say, Natalie Merchant, whom he evokes most clearly on “Last Year,” the third track on this Akron band’s terrific second album. Equally informed by Motown, indie pop and alt-country, Goodmorning Valentine is too spirited to be slowcore and too offbeat to be considered traditional singer-songwriter fare. The uptempo tracks here are the strongest, as Beltram sings in a deeper register for “Rock and Roll Boys and Girls,” a tune that sounds like a Ryan Adams ballad (again, a compliment), and “City Lights,” which takes classic rock structures and spruces them up with swirling synthesizers. The keyboard-driven “Girl,” which nearly passes as Van Morrison, and even the horn arrangement in “Why Do You Bother,” both feel natural. Admittedly, the flute solo and chirping birds in “She Comes Saturday” are a bit much, but that’s the only time these guys err. - Cleveland Free Times

. This is not a happy record. Even by the doom-laden standards of the Americana genre, “Easter Park” stands pretty much alone. Writer and main man Joey Beltram has a voice of a man who would kill himself if only he didn’t know that it would be the most pointless thing in a pointless life, and pens less-is-more lyrical tales of revelation and resignation. Supported by a five piece band he bleeds out songs that ache with passionate pain. Tracks like “No name number 3” and “Soft heart” ache almost unbearably as they file through the speakers in a stately procession of lifes bad moments and losses. There are lighter moments (musically at least) like “Shrug it off” and “I’ll stay worried” but overall its all down. Down in an uplifting and inspiring way though, in the way that great down can be, this is music for late nights in the dark holding on to the one you love. Excellent production adds to the sense of space and echoing emptiness, and the occasional use of brass and strings adds texture and colour (gray of course). In places reminiscent of the Ashtray Hearts and Pacific Ocean Fire, there are also echoes of Tom Waits circa “Ghosts of Saturday Night”, notably on one of the few (relatively) upbeat tracks “Bermont Avenue”. “Easter Park” is one of the most promising debuts for some time, and hopefully UK gigs will materialize sooner rather than later. - Americana UK - Jeremy Searle

Goodmorning Valentine's Joey Beltram sings a little like Chris Isaak and writes a lot like Jackson Browne. And if he can continue to do it with some regularity, Northeast Ohio can boast a major new talent. He has plenty of help from the rest of the band -- six other Akron-Kent players contribute trumpets, violins, keyboards, and cello. The studio must have been crowded, but you'd never guess it to listen to Easter Park. A producer could easily morph the songs into quality power-pop or country, but the disc sounds as if a freshly heartbroken veteran singer-songwriter is sitting down to a piano and bleeding out a slow, sad set. Beltram never wears thin, alternating between cynical ("I'll stay worried/If you stay sane" in the jangling "I'll Stay Worried") and romantic, as in the pensive track: "Let's take a walk down to Easter Park/After the sun has long since set/We'll sit and watch the bars fill up/And smoke our cigarettes." Writing real songs isn't fashionable anymore, but he does it -- thank you. - Cleveland Scene - DX Ferris