“You can take the boy out of Texas but you can’t take Texas out of the boy”; it’s an old adage consistently weighted in truth. Fifth generation Texan Barton Stanley David is a prime piece of evidence, considering he moved back to Dallas in 2019 following a decade in New York City. After that, it didn’t take long for David to cross paths with producer Jeff Saenz, who’d already worked with Leon Bridges and Paul Cauthen and established a reputation through Modern Electric Sound Recorders. They got cracking on David’s new record Crest in 2021, but hit a huge valley six months in with Saenz lost both arms to a downed power line outside his family’s home. With the help of Grammy Winner Dave Schiffman (who’s lent his talents to Audioslave, Tom Petty, Adele, and The Killers), The Eagles’ violinist-engineer Scarlett Deering, Jeff Buckley/Nirvana mastering engineer Howie Weinberg and others, Crest was finally completed.
The result is a ’90s-style seven-song alt-rock-meets-chamber-pop masterpiece of Americana, tethered together by David’s one-of-a-kind voice. Crest is out tomorrow, and we’ve been given an extra push over the edge today courtesy of the record’s final single that features White Denim drummer Matt Young and was inspired by pandemic-era domestic violence and the role technology plays in connecting communities, “How We Live In Love”.
–Jack Anderson
