This is Gretchen Peters’ first appearance on FFS, and she’s most decidedly at the country end of our folk spectrum (if you remember Faith Hill, she wrote a song for her in the 90s). She’s lived in Nashville since the…
Category: Records
Singles Round-up | Liz Green, Ajimal, Sweet Lights, Tom Williams & The Boat, Maia, Athena
Liz Green – Bad Medicine ‘Bad Medicine’ is taken from Liz Green’s debut album O, Devotion! and it is quite frankly brilliant. It’s also pretty difficult to describe, the closest I can get being that it is a bit like…
Album: We Are Augustines – Rise Ye Sunken Ships
All the brawn of We Are Augustines’ instrumentation could easily mask the emotional clout that Rise Ye Sunken Ships contains. The opening gambit of a four-to-the-floor drum beat and the ensuing anthemic guitar chord progression in ‘Chapel Song’ immediately defines…
Album | Straylings – Entertainment on Foreign Grounds
The Straylings’s debut effort comes in the form of the compelling Entertainment on Foreign Grounds and it certainly leaves a lasting impression on the listener. Gaining praise from such people as Steve Lamacq, the band are definitely under a lot…
Album | Bowerbirds – The Clearing
On their charming new album The Clearing, the Bowerbirds stick to the formula that gained them acclaim on their previous records, Upper Air and Hymns for a Dark Horse. On first listen it appears to be a tribute to their…
Album | Andrew Bird – Break It Yourself
Andrew Bird has always flirted with the idea of making pop music. His often sprawling, always impressively constructed compositions have toyed with the boundaries between experimentation and melodic straightforwardness for years now, but his strength has always lain in being…
Album | Farrar, Johnson, Parker & Yames – New Multitudes
Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, and Yim Yames have produced a fitting album to include in this year’s centennial celebration of Woody Guthrie’s birth with their interpretation of unpublished Guthrie lyrics on New Multitudes . This volume focuses on…
Album | Sophia Knapp – Into The Waves
Into The Waves is Sophia Knapp’s first solo record away from her ‘day job’ in Brooklyn-based rockers Cliffie Swan/Lights. Describing music as ‘pleasant’ and ‘nice’ can often be a curse word and code for saying it’s extremely boring. Not in…
Album | Miles Nielsen – The Rusted Hearts
With The Rusted Hearts, Miles Nielsen has honed his sound to an ideal pop/rock state: a knack for catchy melodies, shimmering guitars and flawless production, as well as quite a few nods toward his musical forerunners. The album opens with…
Album | Memoryhouse – The Slideshow Effect
It must get boring being constantly compared to another, bigger, more successful band, so let’s get it over with quickly. Yes, Memoryhouse sound a bit like Beach House. They’re both ‘dream pop’, they both have female singers with defined, droney…