"Sold My Soul To the Sun" is available at CDBaby.com
"If you need a frame of reference, then stand-up local singer-songwriter Tyler Byrnes alongside nerd-romantics Marshall Crenshaw, Chris Stamey, Nick Lowe, or Matthew Sweet, because Byrnes delivers shimmery, dependable pop songs about love. Sold My Soul comes 18 months after his intriguing debut album, Byrnes. This time out, Byrnes has dropped the engagingly surreal but overly arch lyrics and a romantic-cynic pose. Instead, we have something far more enduring: heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics melded to sure-of-hand, multigenre instrumentation that raps insistently at the door to your mind. Once inside, the sounds promise to bounce around for a goodly amount of time.
Recorded at New Paltz Sound Studios, this 10-track CD features nine fellow musicians filling out Byrnes's compositions with solid, steady back-up, not excess aural filigree. Byrnes's voice keens and pokes at the boundaries of his emotional microcosms. And if he momentarily overreaches to channel Pink Floyd's Meddle era, forgive him; the allure of pop acclaim is one seductive wench. Still, the aching loneliness of Byrnes's trumpet on the epic "To Be Free" or the wistful piano on "Voices" will undoubtedly convince you to sign up as a Tyler Byrnes groupie until school resumes. Rehumanize yourself at www.tyler-byrnes.com."
-- Jay Blotcher / the Chronogram.com (2006)
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"Starting with his phenomenal knack and intuitive sense for weaving electronics with an acoustic mindframe,
Byrnes takes the lush washes of swirling space rock and caramel-textured indie pop and breeds it with math rock, progressive rock,
emo and even a touch of piano-centered pop. Comparisons are a dangerous stretch- one can hear hints of this and that, Coldplay,
Beatles, David Gray- but pinpointing Byrne's music is like trying to replicate a kaleidoscope's interior with a charcoal pencil.
The striking, vivid, strident colors mix with a fractal-like, geometrical structure that allows this music to knock you out of
your expectations and assumptions and land you in a field of awe. Brilliant- I couldn't stop listening."
-- CD Baby (2005)
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"The world of singer-songwriter Byrnes is a fantastic place - flames burn inside waterfalls, sunshine tastes of lemon, and an angelic,
frothing devil is beseeched to put down his sword. Either there is greatness lurking here, or Byrnes inhabits a delusional state.
No matter: The results are wholly enchanting."
