“Lost so many friends / Lonely me / Still here on earth / Sundown,” soul and R&B influenced artist Eddie Chacon, sings on his latest album, of the same name, which has songs about growing older and processing the later years in life. It’s fitting that the sun features so much on the album, as Eddie and his producer-collaborator, John Carroll Kirby, who also plays keys on the album, recorded this album in sunny Mediterranean island, Ibiza.

It has a throwback feel to it, something like Marvin Gaye, with his soulful takes on life and life’s struggles. But it is soft as well, something like the feel you get listening to Held Negro, with a touch of latin spice. It’s the “Same Old Song,” but sung with Chacon’s smooth and wise signature personality. Like an island getaway, there is a peacefulness and a lightness to the production, though it deals in heavier subject matters most of the time.

“Haunted memories in the place of good times.” The lyrics are simple and somewhat repetitive, but they are deep with a maturity of a life fully lived. “Used to have a life / Had everything / Comes and goes.” His music is at once an oasis, as we escape through his buttery voice and his soulful arrangements, and a reckoning with the hardships of life. “We can make it holy / Or we can make it hell.”

It’s a nice sized chunk of music, at thirty five minutes and eight songs. A labor of love, a beautiful snapshot of this time in Chacon’s life. It ends with the song, “The Morning Sun,” (“The morning sun kisses everyone”,) offering at the end of a heavy but cathartic record, the hope of ever-new beginnings. It is a deeply spiritual offering of songs that you can either deep dive into, like the ocean, or relax listening to, like sitting on the beach and feeling the ocean breeze. It works on multiple levels, one of the winning qualities of the record. Like the beach on a tropical island, once you’ve visited it once, it’s likely you’ll visit it, again and again and again.

Order Sundown by Eddie Chacon HERE