“MacNeil’s strength is in his ability to take his diverse background in
music and to make it a sound of his own which compliments his voice. As
the lyrics fade and the instrumentals pick up, you can hear this highly
developed complexity of musical sound.” – Indie In Tune Magazine

How do you make a Luke MacNeil? Start with a deep-rooted love of
all things musical. Add an eclectic background of experimentation in
various genres of music ranging from classical and blues to death metal
and hard rock. Add a pinch of spunk, a handful of lyrical exploration
and a dash of dare-to-be-different.

Stir it all together until you can’t tell one component from the rest because it is so seamlessly well blended. Pour into the center of an acoustic guitar, shake it by strumming with fingers, which were born to play, and cook with the heat of a passionate belief in the pleasure of the experience.

His most recent full-length CD, “Here’s One For Sanity“, uses a thirteen-song set to display his combination of talents. The initial feeling that you might get when listening to the CD is that he has a coffee-shop sound, as his vocals have that familiar open mic warmth to them. Certain songs could easily be played on local radio stations featuring novice folk rock artists. However, what will quickly impress itself upon you as you listen through MacNeil’s music is that the instrumental support he lends to his vocals is anything but novice.

MacNeil’s strength is in his ability to take his diverse background in music and to make it a sound of his own which compliments his voice. As the lyrics fade and the instrumentals pick up, you can hear this highly developed complexity of musical sound. But the music doesn’t drown out the vocals; for example, on his track “I Tried”, his lyrics volley back and forth with his guitar to create a song which explains itself both with and without words. His story is told this way throughout the CD, giving a complete tale which is both concrete and magical.

While listening to Luke MacNeil’s tune All of the Time, there was something that I couldn’t put my finger on. It has all of the color, emotion and execution of the contemporary singer/songwriter, but there is something else there.
Then I read through his web site and I think I have figured it out.

The man has an all reaching appreciation for music, including a history
with metal that seems to be far reaching. That is what I hear: the
melodic twists of classic Pantera and Dream Theater
laid over the groove of the modern day singer/songwriter. I know, I
know, it sounds like a weird mix, but it works, it works very well in
fact. I am not saying that the whole melody harkens back to classic prog metal,
but there are turns throughout and especially in the middle eight that
made me double take for a moment, until I realized how well it worked.

The song on the whole is very nice and the recording makes me think
that Mr. MacNeil handles playing solo very well, which is not as easy
to pull off as it may seem.

This is someone that all contemporary singer/songwriter and acoustic groove fans should check out.

In an age where music and technology are becoming increasingly more connected, local singer/songwriter Luke MacNeil is committed to staying ahead of the curve.

The 23-year-old Milford resident plans to release his latest full-length CD, titled “Under Covers,” exclusively through digital download services such as Napster and Apple’s iTunes Music Store. That means no compact discs, no tapes, no vinyl, just bytes of memory.

It’s a bold move for a bourgeoning artist like MacNeil, considering figures suggest only 5 percent to 10 percent of all independent music sales reported are from digital sources, but it’s a challenge he is excited to meet head-on.

“Outlets like iTunes and MySpace are great distributors,” he said. “I’ve been able to reach people that I never thought I’d reach and that’s the plan, to reach as many people as possible.”

“This is a new age for the music business,” he continued. “We’re at a point now where music is being played on machines the size of business cards. Cell phones now act as personal media devices. You don’t have to look far to see the change.”

An active member of the Massachusetts music scene since 2002, MacNeil has become a fixture at local folk strongholds like Harvard Square’s legendary Club Passim and the DCU Center in Worcester, where he earned a stop as a special guest performer at Pulse Magazine’s PulseFest 2006.

His previous album, “Here’s One for Sanity,” was released earlier this year and received accolades from both diehard folkies and the press for its emotive lyrics and MacNeil’s distinctive finger-style guitar playing.

Beginning his musical journey on bass, a sojourn that he admits only lasted a year or so, MacNeil has since crafted a style for himself that infuses a host of different genres.

An early interest in death metal prompted an interest in complex chord forms and scales, but after being exposed to some local musicians and the plaintive folk of Irish artist Damien Rice, he quickly became infatuated with finger style guitar technique and alternate tunings, a transition that he says has been a welcome one.

“The acoustic guitar just vibrates more,” he said. “I was spending too much time messing with pedals and amps and different setups trying to get a tone that I liked. But I just sat down with an acoustic and there it was when I turned the amplifier off. It’s sort of simple and that’s beautiful and brilliant, just to come from a guitar.”

He also cites the early influence of his family as a catalyst toward acoustic-based music.

“My family and all my uncles were always playing country music,” he said. “They’d sit around and have these little hootenannies on the table, so I knew pretty early that I wanted to do what they were doing. It just seemed like fun. I guess even being that young, music hit me in ways that I knew I wanted to do something like that. Some of those old songs have become a part of me, and I think that might be one of the reasons that I love the sound of an acoustic guitar so much.”

“Under Covers” couldn’t be a more compelling look into that evolution. Featuring versions of songs by such disparate artists as Radiohead, Tool and Pink Floyd, the album shows MacNeil striking an expert balance between the pathos of the original tunes and his own brooding style.

“My music is definitely less angry, but it’s not as wide a difference as you’d think,” he said of the stylistic differences displayed on the record. “When I sing, I tend to scream a lot. It comes from being angry, but also from wanting to get something across, and that’s something that some of the artists I covered have used too.”

Although he recognizes the irony of a former metalhead giving a contemplative take of Tool’s epic “Sober,” MacNeil is quick to point out the worth of his source material lies in the chord it strikes with him, something he hopes listeners will hear whether or not it is on a CD or downloaded via MP3.

“These are songs that I love,” he said. “They’re the songs that I sing to my friends and my family. Each track on this record has in some way touched my life, and I am sure the lives of countless others. This is my way of sharing them with the world.”

Luke MacNeil plays the Meldiva Coffee House, 22 E. Central St., Franklin tomorrow night at 8 p.m. He’s play at the Java Hut, 1073 A Main St., Worcester, at 9 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 23, and at the Corner Pub, 1 West Union St., Ashland, at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 29.

For additional performances and more information about MacNeil, go to www.myspace.com/lukemacneil or www.lukemacneil.com.

About two years ago, he finally worked up the nerve. Wading in cautiously, MacNeil began performing Radiohead covers at open mikes. Meanwhile, when he wasn’t at work at his IT job, he trained his voice with the same diligence that he’d studied guitar.

“I just kept at it,” he said. “I spent a lot of time going through vocal exercises, warm-ups, and warm-downs, and did a lot of open mikes, where I got a lot of practice singing into microphones. And I eventually saved up some money and went to see a vocal coach out in Revere, and he helped me out a lot.”

To hear MacNeil today, it’s hard to imagine what the fuss was about. Ranging from rumbling low notes to sweet highs, from soulful, rolling refrains to jazzy scats, his voice rides through a song like a fine-tuned car on an open road. And local folk venues are just now starting to notice.

Last month he played Pulse Fest at the Worcester DCU Center. He followed that with his debut at the local folk scene epicenter, Club Passim in Cambridge, where he opened for John Gerard. Tomorrow he performs for the first time as the featured act of the Red Door Coffee House open mike in Framingham.

“I’d always been hoping that somebody would ask,” he said of Red Door, where he’s lined up regularly with other musicians and poets as an open mike participant for the last two years.

The Red Door organizer, Holliston singer/songwriter Tom Driscoll, said it was time. “I don’t know how to be more expansive than to say he’s just really good. He’s a great guitar player and a passionate performer,” said Driscoll.

MacNeil’s crazy-quilt of influences makes for interesting songwriting. Though he says he grew up hating country music, the all-Hank Williams “hootenannies” his father and uncles held when he was growing up seem to surface with a slight country crackle in some of his songs.

“They only played Hank Williams, over and over. They played it so much I developed a Hank Williams phobia,” said MacNeil. “But when I found out I was named after him — he went by Luke the Drifter — I started paying more attention. I still don’t necessarily like his voice or his own recordings, but just his songs and melodies. He did, after all, write the songwriting book.”

In other songs, MacNeil’s teenage fascination with death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse comes through. And, oddly, the dramatic metal-style chord changes he borrows sound just plain pretty when welded with his classical fingerstyle picking and folk-inspired melodies.

“There’s a huge heavy metal influence in my music,” he said. “From listening to it and playing it for so many years, I developed strange habits with my hands. I play chords that normal folk musicians don’t play because they are meant to be played electric. But on an acoustic it’s really a beautiful sound. If you take the distortion away from death metal, it pretty much turns into classical music. It’s very technical.”

MacNeil also channels heavy metal’s dark mood. He describes his own lyrics as “depressing,” though earnest seems more accurate.

“When I listen to songs, I don’t want to dance, I want to be moved,” he said. “So I use music for that. I use it to work out that `Oh, I’m so sad,’ stuff.”

But he is upbeat about the new performance opportunities he’s getting and his newfound voice.

“I’m totally comfortable with my voice now,” he said. “But it’s like any other instrument. It’s something that has to be learned.”

“I was afraid of singing really, I was a horrible singer growing up. I put a lot of work into it, but as a kid I never thought I was going to be able to sing.”

On his album, MacNeil doesn’t just go through the “American Idol”-esque motions of an amateur performer. His stunning voice is achingly beautiful as it rides the waves and troughs of his melodies. Each quiver in his voice is truly goosebump-inducing.

He first became interested in music when he was 8 years old, passing a man on a porch playing folk. MacNeil also began to dabble in hard rock a la Metallica, but “Trying to play that kind of music on an acoustic guitar wasn’t working out so well.”

His heavier tastes still come through on the disc which, despite his bewitching voice, is mostly melancholy. Though the tunes stick to his acoustic-folk tastes, the music stays pretty dark, even with his silvery delivery. Songs like “I Tried” and “Why” drip with heartache and loneliness. It’s a theme MacNeil was conscious of when writing.

“I think most songs and poetry originate from some form of emotional pain,” he said.

While the album is free of any booty-shaking party hits, it’s certainly not a dreary affair either. The emotion is genuine and the sincerity in MacNeil’s songwriting saves the material from becoming too depressing.

That’s a good thing, since his goal wasn’t to upset listeners. Rather, he hopes they walk away feeling like they just left a campfire, what he considers folk music to be all about.

This artist is underselling himself though. If all campfire performers were as gifted and pleasing on the ears as MacNeil, we’d all have to brave the outdoors more often.