It’s difficult to make a standout acoustic singer-songwriter album because, truthfully, they’re a dime a dozen nowadays. With the explosion of independent music and living-room mixing and mastering, a ton of unknown artists have found a voice and an audience in the music industry.

With his newest self-titled release, Nathaniel Sutton seems only to add his name to that growing list of decent singer-songwriters. The thickness in his voice is sometimes pleasant, but can also be overbearing and repetitive. Even so, his songwriting ability is fairly sophistocated.  Amidst simple acoustic guitar strums and plinking piano keys, Sutton’s writing is very personal, floating between themes of heartbreak to his views of society, all within a minimalistic pallette of sound.

Unfortunately, most of the tracks possess the same qualities in tone, which makes one hard-pressed to find a “standout” track. The opening “Age Of The Dinosaur” comes closest, painting an interesting lyrical vision of isolation amidst a lonely guitar/harmonica combination. Save a couple more tracks, however, most of the album is background noise.

There are a couple songs that might catch your ear, but overall, Sutton’s self-titled release is just decent at best.

(Engineer Records, 210 William Street, Boonton, NJ 07005)