Christopher Paul Stelling – Forgiving It All

There are musicians who have been making beautiful, wonderful music for years, even decades, whose music might ironically be a little too beautiful to break through to the big time. Christopher Paul Stelling is a guitar virtuoso, in the old sense of the word, finger-plucking skill you might have been more likely to find in the sixties. He’s put together another beautiful record in Forgiving It All.

While he’s always had a spiritual element, that feels even more the cast with Forgiving, from the intimate opener “Die To Know” to the touching close “They’ll All Proclaim”. There are the sweet elegies of “Rosewood”, and the memorable ‘your heroes need hope’ “WWYLLYD” (acronym for “When What You Love Lets You Down”). However, Stelling also brings his wry side, back-to-back with “Driving the Hearse” and “Fish Or Cut Bait”.

Stelling also has a straight-up finger-plucking instrumental in “For Your Drive”, that oddly kind of embodies him, his skill & beauty that might not be a club banger or make you put your devil horns hand sign, but is just done so well.