//Review Bits: Gavin DeGraw – Stay//

For his third studio album, Gavin DeGraw set out to make an album that goes back to the basics, that strips away the barriers between the raw magnetism of the music and the listener’s ears.

A two-week long jam session in a New York studio with producer Camus Celli resulted in Free, a collection of  10 songs exhibiting the intended minimal production, and DeGraw’s immense talent for writing songs that run the gamut of love’s ups and downs.

One such song is the first single from the set, the guitar-laden, mid-tempo lovelorn tale of ”Stay.”

“You don’t have to be part of the problem/I just need a second chance,” sings DeGraw as the song opens amidst the yearning twinkling of his piano. His indecisiveness has clearly gotten the best of him.

As the instrumentation fills out at the chorus, so does DeGraw’s grief-stricken vocals lamenting the near-loss of his lady. “Oh, won’t you stay/I need you, need you here/when you’re with me/others disappear.”

“Stay” closes with the same line it opens with, only more passionate than before.

Fans of DeGraw’s platinum-selling debut album, Chariot, will find that “Stay” could have easily found a home among that collection, proving that going backward isn’t always a bad thing–the basics are great for Gavin DeGraw.