“This is a prayer that you’re alright,” weeps Tony Tripi, known musically as Tripi, in one of his new album’s crucial pieces. “Sleep Well,” featuring Steve Conte, feels like both a severe lamentation and acceptance of his grandson’s death. That pain and grief becomes the connective glue to Close to Fire: Roman’s Anthology Release Part I, a 10-song project that oscillates between complete hopelessness and infectious optimism that the sun will soon break through the storm clouds. Tripi urges the listener to engage honestly with the feelings of loss before letting anger and sorrow floating up and away. “Ronan” with guest Emily Grove, whose honeyed, emotional performance gives the album even greater weight, twinkles with the ephemeral nature of human existence. It’s a raw, visceral, and unrelenting moment.
Tripi also stuns with other evocative, somber songs like the breathy “I Don’t Mind” with James Maddock. “There’s a lonely feeling I carry that’ll follow me all my days,” he croaks in the opening lyric. Gentle percussion, teary guitar, and moaning piano accompanying him as ghosts of the past. “You drift in and out of my dreams now like a ship out at sea in a storm,” he sings later, peeling back the outer membrane of his heart. The strings throb; the blood courses; and Tripi’s voice feels appropriately aching, as though he might never recover. Covers of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (with Jessie Wagner) and “Tears in Heaven” (with Mike DelGuidice) thread the commonality of death in our lives, that longing and desire to know someone again before they fade from our mind.
Close to Fire doesn’t just allow Tripi an avenue for working through his misery, but it also gives the musician room to delight. Tripi also makes sure the listener has a damn good time, as you’ll undoubtedly on “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down for Long” and the groovy, sizzling “Come to Poppa,” an almost The Animals fusion with his own style.
Tripi strikes that perfect balance between feeling what you feel and learning how to let it all go. The breezier songs emerge as moments of celebration, letting the good in your life swell within you and overflow to someone else. Close to Fire: Roman’s Anthology Release Part I sets up an impressive entry in his catalog that’s earnest, honest, and a skill-honed demonstration.
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