Signal Fire, from Jared Mees’ (the musician, not the motorcycle man) latest long-player, Life Is Long (April 2017), is a testament to parenthood; about our goals and desires to be good parents to our children and to help guard them, or at least guide them, whenever possible. This is heartfelt music, a picture painted with words so clearly that you can feel and see their meaning with precision. Musically, Jared Mees plants his tunes firmly in the space between folk and pop anthems. Lyrically, these are stories, read with the…
Read MoreLet us make this clear: This is not a new video. It does not come from a new long-player. Furthermore, there is no new long-player for which this video is a stepping-off point for a new review. In fact, Orenda Fink has not made a new long-player since Blue Dream, from which Ace Of Cups hails, back in August of 2014. This long player came to light from what looks like a label dump by Saddle Creek into bandcamp.com, though it could just as easily have come from…
Read MoreIrena Zilic hails from Zagreb, Croatia, which means that her musical influences and exposures are probably somewhat different from other indie-folk artists. I say “probably” because there is no bio to give us her background. I do know that Irena has been about and making indie-influenced pop/folk tunes since sometime in 2012, when her first 4-song EP, Days Of Innocence, came out. She then released an LP, titled Travelling (September 2014) which contained 3 of the 4 tracks from the EP. The latest long-player, Haze (March 2017), is…
Read MoreTelling The Bees is from Big Big Train’s last long-player, Folklore (May 2016), and is the final track on that great LP. Vodka has been a huge fan of Big Big Train since we discovered them, which unfortunately took us a while. To give you a sense of their impact on Vodka, here are links dating back to 2013: Make Some Noise (October 2013 review) Wassail (July 2015 review) Folklore (May 2016 review) Big Big Train’s brand of progressive rock is sometimes soaring and anthemic, such as Make Some Noise,…
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