I’m pretty interested to see what public court of opinion and interest is for a sophomore effort from the folk-rock duo of John Paul White and Joy Williams (aka The Civil Wars). After taking iTunes by storm and in turn debuting in Billboard’s Top 20 with their debut Barton Hollow (2011), they seemed an overnight success story…even if it’d been two years in the making. The promotional and touring cycle included Grammy nominations for both Best Folk Album and Best Country […]
Posts tagged "folk"
Iron & Wine, Ghost on Ghost: Album Review
It’s interesting that being a fan of Iron & Wine isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for enjoying (or not enjoying, for that matter) Sam Beam’s latest album, Ghost on Ghost. Artistic evolution (and devolution) happens all the time — how different could Ghost on Ghost be? Well, for longtime fans of the hirsute folkie, the answer is: very. Beam — who performs as Iron & Wine — made his reputation on a host of recordings that caused the rock-crit elite to […]
Spin Cycle: Mumford & Sons, Babel
Scottish hitmakers Mumford & Sons are back with another agreeable, hooky collection of stomping folk-rock. How does “Babel” stack up to “Sigh No More”?
Spin Cycle: The Avett Brothers, The Carpenter
In the realm of swaying, stomping, harmonic pop-folk, The Avett Brothers stand only in the shadow of Mumford & Sons, a recent success story that, perhaps not-coincidentally, the long-running North Carolina brother-band is starting to bear more than a passing resemblance to. Comparing Mumford’s lone album to the Avett’s discography previously yielded only superficial comparisons: po-faced, earnest lyricism; the tell-tale lilt of a banjo here and there; shouty, fractured harmonies. But where the Mumfords use their Appalachian sensibilities […]
Spin Cycle: Glen Hansard, Rhythm and Repose
Glen Hansard, of Swell Season, The Frames, and Once fame, lends his soulful brogue to an all-new set of tunes on his first solo record, “Rhythm and Repose”.
Spin Cycle: The Tallest Man On Earth, There’s No Leaving Now
Beset by not-entirely-off-base Dylan comparisons since his debut dropped, Swedish folkie Kristian Matsson (stage name: The Tallest Man On Earth) is operating under the small-ish genre umbrella of indie folk, a lovely little haven where performers live and die by the strength of their songs, where rugged baritones and rambling napkin poetry are the order of the day, where boredom is uncomfortably easy to attain if you’re not careful. Fortunately for Matsson, he’s got the goods – “the goods”, in […]
Spin Cycle: Tom Waits’ “Bad As Me”
Back in 2006, Tom Waits released a sprawling odds-and-sods collection called Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. At a massive three discs, and packaged like a dusty hardbound American tome large enough to bludgeon with, Waits decided to cut directly to the chase: each disc was named after the type of songs contained therein, according to which of the three titular descriptors it matched. That mentality isn’t unique to that set, though; in Tom Waits’ universe, in fact, brawlers, bawlers, and […]
The Blerd13 with… Brett Detar!
Brett Detar has been a part of the modern music scene since 1996, including a nine year run with alternative/indie band The Juliana Theory, but after a decade in the rock and metalcore scene, Brett took a hiatus, returning in 2010 with his first solo album, Bird in the Tangle. Fans of his previous work, however, were in for a surprise. Brett’s return stems from classic country and folk roots, rather than the hard rock of before. I was able […]
Spin Cycle: Jeff Bridges’ Self-Titled Album
Whether he likes it or not, Jeff Bridges’ new self-titled album falls squarely in the long shadow of his award winning portrayal of fallen country singer “Bad” Blake in 2009’s Crazy Heart. The album’s line-up of contributors certainly doesn’t help separate it from the film: producer and Americana legend T-Bone Burnett returns after his award-winning direction on the Crazy Heart soundtrack, Ryan Bingham (of “The Weary Kind” fame) jumps in on vocals for a few tracks, and three of the […]
Spin Cycle: Bon Iver’s “Bon Iver, Bon Iver”
Reams and reams of paragraphs, enough (and steeped in enough mythology) to ink dozens of dead sea scrolls, have been devoted to Bon Iver’s 2007 debut, For Emma, Forever Ago, and not without reason; indie lovers and avid Pitchfork readers seem to flock to rootsy acoustic-slinging troubadours with gusto, special hipster points granted for being lo-fi. It doesn’t get much more lo-fi than a heart-broke woodsman holing up for the winter in a Wisconsin cabin and writing and recording his […]