Reviews

Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers: Songs In The Night

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Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers: Songs In The Night (Ramseur Records, 2009)

Ramseur Records succesfully brought The Avett Brothers into our hearts. Now The Avett Brothers have moved on to a major label in order to reach that worldwide stardom they so truly deserve, but also Ramseur is still going strong with great artists like Duke & The King, Paleface and this Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers on their roster.

Samantha Crain is a young talented songwriter (born 1986) who has a rather unique but beautiful voice. Samantha and her band The Midnight Shivers have created a very good debut album Songs In The Night. The heart of the album is hanging out on the field where country singer-songwriters and folk rockers are organizing a barn dance, but the body of the music can’t resist the lures of the indie rock clubs of the big city. Despite often being rather dark and melancholic, Songs in the Night is still amazingly enjoyable and easily approachable. The finest songs on the album like Devils In Boston, Rising Sun and Songs in the Night are already really marvellous, but at this given time I would file about half of the album under the category “good songs but nothing truly special”. Extremely promising stuff nevertheless and I’m looking forward to the next album.

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Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers Website
Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers at myspace

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Reviews

Son Volt: Central American Dust

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Son Volt: American Central Dust (Rounder, 2009)

I often forget the fact that Son Volt is a really great band that has released a bunch of fine alt.country albums and one real classic of the genre called Trace.  They certainly must have something good going on, if I buy their album every time. However, American Central Dust doesn’t rank among their finest work. Even though it’s a solid beautiful country album, there’s not enough real jewels to be completely excited about it. No Turning Back, Roll On and Jukebox Of Steel are my big favourites on the new album. Most of the other songs are good too, but American Central Dust would have needed more rock stuff and rougher corners. I do love rootsy music, I do love ballads and I do love love pedal & lap steel, but if there’s almost nothing else than slow or mid-tempo country songs  there’s a danger that it starts to get boring in the long run no matter how thoughtful and how beautifully crafted they are.

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Son Volt Website
Son Volt at myspace

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News

Flavour of the Month 2.10.2009

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THE CASBAH (H:ki)
THE EVERGLADES (T:ku)
MARTY THE RANDOM GUY (T:ku)
+ Flavour Of The Month DJ:t
pe 2.10. 2009 klo 21-03
Pikku-Torre, Yliopistonkatu 30, Turku
liput 3€

Lokakuun Flavour Of The Month-iltamissa kuullaan sekä paikallista että vierailevaa nousevaa voimaa. Vaasalaislähtöinen, brittihenkistä rokkaavaa kitarapoppia tarjoileva The Casbah tekee FOTM-debyyttinsä ja saa taustatukea turkulaiselta The Evergladesilta, jonka musiikissa häilyy niinikään brittirockin ja -popin parhaat perinteet. Illan pohjustaa mielenkiintoinen paikallinen laulaja-lauluntekijä Marty The Random Guy, joka sekoittelee americanan eri rakennuspalikoita (country, blues, folk) omanlaiseensa järjestykseen. Illan levymusiikista vastaavat perinteiseen tapaan FOTM-DJ:t.

http://www.myspace.com/martytherandomguy
http://www.myspace.com/thecasbahband
http://www.myspace.com/theeverglades
http://www.theevergladesband.com

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Reviews

Richard Swift: The Atlantic Ocean

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Richard Swift: The Atlantic Ocean (Secretly Canadian, 2009)

“Anthropological swag with rock and roll banjo and a trift-shop synth” says the sticker on the cover. Someone has come up with quite a marketing sentence, but I suppose it worked because I bought the album. Well bigger reason for that was that I really enjoyed his debut double album The Novelist / Walking Without Effort and therefore I thought I will give this a shot (I had already missed the second album).  It was a minor mistake, because it seems that Richard Swift nowadays makes too good music for me. He has turned into this pop genius with an experimental side and I’m a boring person with a simple taste of music. That is not a match made in heaven. I can’t say that the guy doesn’t have an ear for melody anymore, because there still are several gorgeous moments within the songs. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Atlantic Ocean was the pop album of the year for several people, but for me it just doesn’t work as a whole no matter how hard I try.

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Richard Swift Website
Richard Swift at myspace

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