The Deep Dark Woods: The Place I Left Behind (Six Shooter / Sugar Hill, 2011)

The Deep Dark Woods from Saskatoon, Canada is my new favourite band and their new album The Place I Left Behind is one amazing album. It will definitely be the album of the month and someone must release one hell of an album later in the year, if this doesn’t end up being my album of the year as well. I just can’t get tired of this and believe me, I’ve tried. I listened to it eight hours in a row at work for several days and the thought that I have other albums on my iPod never occurred to me during those days.

The Place I Left Behind is one of the most convincing folk rock and alternative country albums that I’ve heard during the last couple of years. Beautiful lead vocals, rich harmonies and warm sounds gently collide with sad & lonesome thoughts, gloomy & dark stories.. and even old-fashioned murder ballads. Sometimes I even feel guilty because I feel warmth and beauty all around even though I’m listening some slow and lonesome moment that maybe should evoke an opposite reaction. But maybe that contrast is what makes it all the more striking and captivating. Frontman Ryan Boldt has a perfect voice for this kind of music and the whole album is so beautifully crafted. The storytelling is excellent throughout the record. Whether it’s an old fashioned crime tale or a field study of urban loneliness, it works wonderfully. Basicly I just love the whole record. Dear John sometimes feels a little out of place, but as a huge pop fan, I really enjoy that lighter sound as well. The Place I Left Behind is a masterpiece.

The Deep Dark Woods Website
The Deep Dark Woods at Facebook

Listen to Westside Street

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/18096317″]
 
The Deep Dark Woods discuss about the new album (some wonderful songs from the album playing on the background as well):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDDJtQoz6a8]
Note that so far the album has only been released in Canada by Six Shooter Recordings. The album will get an US / Europe release from Sugar Hill Records in october. My apologies to Sugar Hill and the band. The samples were just too brilliant and the wait would have been unbearable, so I had to buy it directly from Canada.