Heirlooms of August show potential with folk/country blend

Alright, I've got one for all you country/folk fans. In the 90s, Jerry Vessel played bass for the Red House Painters while Mark Kozelek stole the show. But with his new project, Heirlooms of August, Vessel boldly announces that he's ready to step out from behind the curtain and show off his own songwriting skills.

Forever the Moon is chock full of acoustic folk, a dash of country, and vividly realized pastoral imagery. You'll hear your fair share of tunes about a guy in a straw hat planting tomatoes on a hot summer day.

The album's most standout attribute are the harmonies delivered by Vessel and Vivian Ginn. It's similar to many of the great male/female harmony combos: Alison Krauss and Union Station, Gillian Welch and Colin Meloy; perhaps even Win Butler and Régine Chassagne if either of them felt inclined to pick up a banjo.

There are some very well penned lyrics in place that pack an emotional punch. The title track is an ode to a father's love for his child. He talks about the birth of his son and then links it into an analogy about rain bringing new life to the earth. I find it a very nice touch.

"Anyway, Sweetness," is another gem. With lyrics that tell of the misdeeds and regrets of an alcoholic lover, it bears resemblance to Brad Paisley's and Krauss's "Whiskey Lullaby."

Other standouts include "Annie," the tale of a knockout cello player, and "Beautiful Summer," a tune dedicated to drinking lemonade, watching baseball, and playing hide and seek on a hot summer day. Vessel sings mostly solo here, allowing his husky, mellow voice to shine through. He sounds okay, but is better when singing with Ginn.

However, the album does have it's share of problems. The harmonies are a nice touch, but the arrangements honestly aren't all that clever. Most of the time both vocalists sing the same notes, just in a different octave. It's alright, but a little more creativity would go a long way.

The songwriting itself is hit or miss. Some of the concepts are well thought out, but aren't properly executed or are awkwardly juxtaposed.

The biggest offender is "Blackness from Blue." Musically and concept-wise, this is one of my favorite songs, but the way in which the story is told is a total mess. Vessel begins by singing about his brother, who has a deep love for some woman.

But a couple stanzas in he ditches that idea to sing about his child and how she almost died, or at least I think it's about his child. He's addressing the song to a particular subject, but it isn't clear if he's singing to his child or about his child.

Later, he talks about taking her to a festival and giving her his hand. So at this point he's clearly talking about a love interest, but when the transition came between singing about his child and lover is pretty murky.

By the end, whoever he's singing about dies and then apparently never existed in the first place; he reveals he dreamed her up his mind. By this point I'm too confused trying to figure out who died and what happened to his kid and what the hell his brother had to do with anything. And I still never found out who he's addressing the song to!

Then you have "A Flower My Love Grows," which seems to have some difficulty wrapping its lyrics around the meter of the song in the first place. Then you have this awkward anti-Christian phrase juxtaposed in near the end which makes no sense and seems wildly out of place. Have a look:

"And I know why some folks like to dream of heaven
but I don't believe anything they claim
and all the Jesus freaks seem so obsolete
and for them I've nothing but my scorn and rage"

Slapped right in the middle of a song about enjoying the finer things in life. All my scorn and rage? The Jesus freaks are obsolete?  This is an album about peace, tranquility, and enjoying a baseball game on a summer day. Where on earth did this come from?

Tobymac does not approve, and neither do I.

And on the closing track, Vessel makes the outrageous claim that children are practically the only decent people on earth. Sorry Mother Teresa. Guess that excludes you.

Mother Teresa: Clearly a douchebag.

"Marianna's Peace" begins with a great melody, but there are several tempo changes that keep popping up which continually speed up and slow down the song, and it severely messes with the flow.  Potentially a really nice song that's marred by some questionable composition.

In all, this really isn't a terrible album. Despite its oddities, it does a commendable job of setting that planting seeds in your orchard with an old oil lamp by your side type of feel. And it packs some nice tunes.  

Forever the Moon won't be the greatest album you'll hear this year but if you're a fan of intimate, stripped back folk ala Fleet Foxes or Bon Iver, or if you're looking for something countryish without the overkill Nashville spitshine, you may find much to like here.

Score: 69/100

Fleet foxes folk/indie recipie will leave you helpless to resist

There is something purifying about the influence and effect of nature on the human soul. The music of the Fleet Foxes pulses through forest streams, manifests itself in green leaves, and will nestle itself into your eardrums like a tune from a fleeting songbird.

The band began turning heads with the mix of folk and pastoral imagery on their 2008 self-titled debut, but the release of Helplessness Blues adds to the formula and catapults it into another dimension.

Being a fan of indie folk, I was drawn in by the pre-release buzz surrounding the band and album. And the layout of the photos and tracklisting on the back reminded me a lot of Let It Be, a nice touch.

But when I popped this disc in I realzied it wasn't quite what I was expecting. This isn't your Bright Eyes, Iron & Wine, and The Tallest Man on Earth type of flolk; Helplessness Blues is more akin to the 70s singer/songwriter Crosby, Stills, and Nash type of folk. This is music to make you want to button up your tunic and go hunt buffalo on the Great Plains.

One of the main keys to what's going on here are the richly textured melodies and harmonies that sound as though they're descending from heaven. It's all layered atop a patchwork of intensely personal acoustic guitar passages, pianos, mandolins, marxophones, harpsichords, and even Tibetian singing bowls.

At the center of it all is Robin Pecknold's smooth, mellow cadence. One of his highlight pieces is "The Shrine/An Argument," which is one of the rare instances where he gets to show off the raw power of his voice, along with his magnificent range.

The lyric writing is also standout. They possess a very heartfealt quality to them while also being very colorful and detalied. "Lorelai" sees the speaker recalling a past love, a topic that's been covered many a time. But take a look at the way it's done here:

"You, you were like glue
Holding each of us together
I slept through July
While you made lines in the heather

I was old news to you then
Old news, old news to you then"

It creates a much more fully fleshed out picture you can easily see in your mind's eye.
"Bedouin Dress" was one of my favorite tracks, which speaks of the regret that a former thief/criminal has when looking back on the days of their youth. In it, the speaker yearns to return to Innisfree, an island well known in Irish lore/culture, but can't due to the choices he made.

"Lorelai" waltzes by at a nice easygoing pace and melody, while "Sim Salla Bim" and "Someone You'd Admire" strike a wistful, pensive mood. Truly, almost every song on the record is a highlight, but Helplessness Blues's title track shines brightest.

It is a combination of spitfire acoustic strumming, heady lyrics about finding yourself and taking a stand, and features a breathtaking shift in time signature near the song's conclusion. The fantastic imagery in the second verse shows off the brilliance of Pecknold's writing:

"What's my name, what's my station
oh, just tell me what i should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night
that would do such injustice to you.

Or, bow down and be grateful
and say " sure, take all that you see"
to the men who move only in dimly lit halls
and determine my future for me."

With Helplessness Blues, the Fleet Foxes have created a work that is fresh, bold, and adventureous. It is a fantastic record and is already one of the top statements of the year thanks to all the wonderful melodies, writing and moods that I can keep coming back to time after time.

Score: 95/100

Conor Oberst out of Key on latest from Bright Eyes

Something's not quite right with Conor Oberst.

The point man behind Bright Eyes established himself as a legend in the indie scene when he self released his debut album at the age of 14 and piloted his own record label from the ground up.

Since then Oberst has watched his profile steadily rise, peaking with arguably his greatest work with 2005's I'm Wide Awake It's Morning. After nearly two decades, there is talk that the band's latest release, The People's Key, may be it's last.

If that's so, it's a real shame. The People's Key is far from being a good album.

 Bright Eyes has historically been known for Oberst's folksy, singer/songwriter, roots style approach. The new LP abandons that in favor of a more alternative vein, emphasizing the sound of the band as a whole. In the process he's managed to rip out everything that made Bright Eyes what it is.

It's risky business for an artist to dramatically alter their musical makeup. Radiohead showed it could work by whitewashing their Brit-rock roots on Kid A. More recently, Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest demonstrated how to mold a simpler, pop-based song structure while still keeping the core elements of their sound intact.

The People's Key, on the other hand, quite simply lacks the power, emotion, and immediacy heard in the band's prior works  The first thing that jumps out is the lack of distinctive melodies; most songs are carried along by the same recycled bouncy beat, supplemented by keyboards.

The lead single, "Shell Games," is the catchiest tune on disc, making it a sure highlight. "Triple Spiral" is alright too, I suppose.

Periodically throughout the disc you'll hear from a narrator who sounds like a slightly more intelligent version of Randy from My Name is Earl. He has some interesting things to say, but suffers from being too wordy and takes too long to get to his point.

And that's perhaps the problem with the lyrics on this album in general. As always, Mr. Oberst has some great words to share, but you have to dig for it. Whereas on earlier material he's made a point of setting a scene or creating a mood much more immediately.

Compare what you get to here to the soul baring confession of "First Day of My Life," or the sense of urgency on "At the Bottom of Everything," both from I'm Wide Awake It's Morning.

For that matter, take a glimpse at the opening of "Four Winds," the lead single from 2007's Cassadaga:

"Your class, your caste, your country, sect, your name or your tribe
There is people always dying trying to keep them alive."

A knockout political salvo in just two lines. And catchy as hell too.

If there is one song that comes close to recapturing Oberst's glory it is "Ladder Song," near the album's close. The lonely piano and haunted vocal immediately evoke a feeling of desolation and loss, and stands out above most everything else on the disc.

The People's Key is certainly listenable and not a bad effort per se, but there isn't much redeeming about it. It's not about the shift in sound for me. Bright Eyes is a band perfectly capable of pulling off the alternative vibe; they just didn't nail it here.

Next time I'll take catchier melodies and ACTUALLY showing a sense of emotion, please and thank you.

Score: 65/100