Following up on his 2019 debut EP ‘Slack Tide’ Katikati-based songwriter Dan Sharp is back in 2021 with another EP, this one titled ‘Water Went Away’. The five-track offering captures (and focuses) the personal emotion and soulful lyrics Sharp is by now known for.

Listeners can expect excellent insight into the Kiwi singer-songwriter whose planned international travels were curtailed by the arrival of Covid. His storytelling is honest and his sound authentic. His vocals have never sounded better than here, and any song that makes you want to cry, dance and belt out is a total win.

‘Water Went Away’ begins with the EP’s lead single The Way That We Used To, an intimate bluesy rock guitar ballad about the changes to a relationship that come with time. “I don’t think that you love me, not the way that you used to…” Sharp has always had the ability to be deeply personal but still accessible to listeners. 

Louisiana is a smart choice for the second track. A song of trying to figure out who you are, and which way you should be going after the life built with a former love ceases to exist. With a lighter musical and vocal touch, Sharp creates a feeling of moving forward, despite it being a tale of love lost. “Stuck staring at a fork in the road, so many places I could go, but none of them feel like home.” 

In Brighter Skies, he’s considering the moment when you do end a relationship, and someone has to get up and actually leave. “When I see you next I hope it’s under brighter skies.” He experiments with a horn section on this track and it pays off, giving the EP its peak and capturing a feeling of hope and reconciliation. 

The final two tracks Little Fires and By Your Hand prove that Dan Sharp’s gentle ‘folk’ voice is equally as comfortable in a small candle-lit bar as it is in a stadium. While Little Fires conjures up an image of slow dancing at a woodshed party, heart-broken ballad By Your Hand is screaming to be played for thousands of arm-swaying fans. It is evidence that Sharp has big aspirations and this EP is proof he has the skills and talent to match any such dreams.