Patrick Park is an old-school singer/songwriter. If he’d arrived in the '70s, he would’ve easily slotted alongside folks like Jackson Browne, Terence Boylan, Garland Jeffreys, JD Souther, and David Crosby. Success was as capricious then as it is now, except, in 2014, singer/songwriters are even less likely to have mega-hits. So folks like Park fight to find the middle ground between glamorous pop productions that give them an actual shot at radio and TV shows and the stripped-down presentations that nearly everyone who loves the genre prefers. Mixed and produced by Park and Dave Trumbfio (Wilco, Built to Spill), Love Like Swords features songs as great as any in Park’s ever-growing catalog (“My Holding Hand Is Empty,” “Down in the Blackness”), with productions that attempt a modern edge where the melodies are emphasized with novel vocal effects and moody atmospherics. It isn’t quite Daniel Lanois hosting Bob Dylan, but it’s a valiant effort to give a smart songwriter a chance to be heard above the din.