Jesse DeNatale - The Hands of Time (2023)

Jesse DeNatale’s new album “The Hands of Time,” is in a word, reverential. It is at times, symphonic and at other times pulsing forward with a rawness and power of rhythm he says stems from his Mexican/Italian roots. The California native says when it came to this record, it was about cutting through the noise, not over-planning the production, but rather chasing the mystery and weaving all he has learned about being human with what he describes as a new, thinner and fragile reality that is in a kind of recovery-mode from the pandemic.Some albums try to ride the zeitgeist of our times, embodying the urgency and anxiety of it. “The Hands of Time” comes in the form of the medicinal antidote, reminding you of all that is eternal and of the spirit, deeply reflective and reverent toward the art of living, to help us find our way. Though the ten songs on the record range in topic, from love, (Love Is) and gratitude (The Hands of Time), to sorrow and to the horrors of gun violence (Stop This World), It's the notion of time itself, with its power and irreversibility, that appears in every song.