Over a year ago, I reviewed the awesome single between Ben Balmer and Aly Tadros entitled Whim. In that review, I referred to Ben Balmer’s long-player at the time, and that Aly Tadros was part of that as well. Well, I’m a dork. Apparently a bit quick to post the review, I didn’t do more digging to find out that the long-player in question, Dug In (October 2012), was Ben’s project alone. My apologies to Mr. Balmer for that screw up! Thinking, is from…
Read MoreI’ve been following the alternately plaintive and raucous alt-folk compositions of The Oh Hellos for some time now. They have a cohesive, textural, yet simple sound that always pleases. Here on Dear Wormwood, the title track from their forthcoming long-player by the same name due out in October 2015, you get a glimpse of the plaintive side. Remembering back to 2012, I listened to a sampling of their debut long player, Through The Deep, Dark Valley, and went looking for a video. At…
Read MoreLunatic Wolf was formed in 2012 in Johannesburg South Africa. This folk rock band’s songs are beautiful compositions. Take The Tallest Tree from their debut long-player To The Adventure (November 2014) as just one example. The eleven tracks on To The Adventure are, like The Tallest Tree, mostly slow to mid-tempo numbers, which seems to work really well for the band. The core of Lunatic Wolf is created from founding members, Gavin van den Berg and Richard Oldfield, who together have been…
Read MoreIf there is such a thing as a folk-rock version of Black 47, then 6’10" is probably as close as you will get. Their stories are spit out like vitriol, but there is often a softness or sadness beneath the surface. Take Backpack, for instance, from the group’s December 2014 long-player, The Humble Beginnings Of A Roving Soul. There is loss here, but no indication of how the loss occurred and perhaps that is not the important part of the story anyway, but…
Read MoreA pretty darned funny video look at bad breakups, Dearly Departed (above), from Shakey Graves October 2014 long player, And The War Came, is also a stellar folk-rock number. If you count the 8-song EP Donor Blues from 2012 as a long-player instead of an EP, then And The War Came is really Shakey Graves’ junior effort. And The War Came is one large part mid-tempo folk (Only Son, Hard Wired, Family and Genius, Big Time Nashville Star) with a touch of rock…
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