Elessar Thiessen: A Rainy Week in Paradise Review: More Than Canada’s Answer to Sheeran

If Canadian upstart Elessar Thiessen sounds familiar, it’s because your ears are used to the stylings of Jason Mraz, Ed Sheeran and John Mayer on the radio over the past decade. Silky, fun, yet deep and even funky at times, Thiessen’s tunes featured on “A Rainy Week in Paradise” are a great companion on a long road trip, where you’d rather smile than think.

A perfect example of a track that’ll get you to snap your fingers rather than look for an encyclopedia is “I Need a Woman.” Thiessen’s voice bounces from a breathy Mraz to a the more poetic Sheeran here, to the point where you’d swear this was a duet between these much more experienced musicians. It’s here that we realize too that it’s his ability to play with his voice and write savvy and simple lyrics is what makes him unique. The fact that he produced and engineered the album, as well as provided guitar, organ and piano, shouldn’t be ignored either.

The album’s title track is another instance where Thiessen’s light and floaty voice, combined with a fun guitar lick makes for something special. For a kid that grew up in often frosty Canada, forced to spend winters inside, he knows how to write a summer song. A beautifully written track with a great hook, it’s something you’d imagine Jimmy Buffet to sing if he never wrote “Margaritaville.” But with the Mraz, Plain White T’s-feel, it’s a radio-friendly track that deserves airtime.

But not all of the tracks are fun and light. “When the World Ends” is a track that has the youngster talking about the future of the world while “Sister” is an emotional ballad that’ll hit you hard. Again, while the comparisons to Sheeran are unavoidable, the song, on its own merits is a damn good one, in the vein of singer/songwriters the likes of James Taylor and Jim Croce. If Ed Sheeran didn’t exist, Thiessen would be a star right now. As it stands, however, Thiessen isn’t a substitute for Sheeran or a doorman’s version of him- he’s just a talented musician- who happens to sound a lot like him.

Thanks to a nice blend of sounds and plenty of talent on multiple instruments, Thiessen quickly separates himself from critics that’ll disregard him by saying that he sounds like a combination of Sheeran and Mraz. While there’s nothing drenched in true originality here in terms of his vocal performance, the pop and radio-friendly formula and beautiful songwriting suits Thiessen just fine.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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