Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More (2009)

Mumford and Sons
Sigh No More 2009 (2010 US Release)

A nice side perk of deciding to start blogging about music is people start to make recommendations.  Living in Spokane my exposure to new music ends up being pretty limited.  So when friends and family start recommending things I end up spending hours and hours on youtube, band's facebook pages, and obscure folk music review sites.  I consider this time well wasted!  A few other upcoming reviews spawned from these recommendations, but a British band my brother told me about is first because... well because it's best.

Mumford and Sons is a folk rock band from England that started making it big in London's folk/indie scene a few years back, but didn't take off internationally until they released their first full length album Sigh No More in 2009 (International and US releases came in early 2010).  Last year the album came to notoriety in Britain reaching #2 on their UK Album Chart and according to a blurb I read on the BBC website was the #3 music export from the country last year.  It got nominated for two Grammy Awards and in the US it reached #2 on the Billboard 200 charts, which is staggering for a London folk rock band.  Brit Rock been becoming more popular in the US and folk has been making a resurgence in recent years, but the success of Mumford and Sons reeks with the promise of more great music to come.

So the band consists of four members who play a range of instruments from keyboards to dobro and string bass.  I personally love banjo work and 'Country' Winston is awesome.  The guitars and percussion mix the best of folk and rock.  The bass really helps the building style and the band has mandolin, accordion and dobro!  The lyrics and vocals are powerful, but folksy.  One song in particular called Dust Bowl Dance brings up a dark folk tale of desperation during the Dust Bowl era.

In general the music takes folk instruments and indie style and applies basic rock tenets.  The songs tend to have a progression towards an emotional and energy crescendo that has the frontman really pushing the lyrics out.  The speed and tempo also are more akin to rock music than the bluegrass instrumentals, but at times the music plays close to a fast paced bluegrass breakdown such as the banjo in Little Lion Man, the biggest hit from the album, and this song shows the duality of this band.  The guitar and lyrics are powerful with swear words and a fast pace, but the banjo picking comes straight out of a Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boy recording.  I have hinted at the crescendos and builds utilized heavily in the album that have a power in them and this can be seen wonderfully in the White Blank Page that almost plays like a slow love ballad until it break into a passionate almost angry outpouring. Of equal note is the wonderfully beautiful anticlimax present in many of the songs that happens after the crash of emotions discussed above.  Winter Winds brings itself down from the peak in a beautiful outro, but Thistle and Weeds has the most beautiful complete anticlimax on the album. The last thing to discuss is the lyrics.  They are often powerful and usually beautiful.  The vocals are delivered in a folk way that forces a rythmic scheme onto lines that vary in syllables, but like Bob Dylan this is pulled off so well that the voice becomes just another very complicated instrument.  If you want to understand the power of the lyrics The Cave, the other big hit on the album, is a great place to look, but Dust Bowl Dance has the best and most clear cut narrative.

Sigh No More is a great breakout album for what I consider one of the best modern folk bands.  I would recommend this album to almost anyone, its multi-faceted appeal should draw in most listeners, but I would highly recommend it to fans of folk music or bluegrass.

Abney Park - Aether Shanties 2009

Abney Park

Aether Shanties (2009) Cover Art

Abney Park is a band that my friends Melissa and Jason turned me on to a few weeks back.  They lent me two albums Aether Shanties (2009) and Lost Horizons (2008).  This band is funky and interesting.  They are a self-stylized Steampunk band.  Their music probably falls into a broad category or genre such as Alternative or Electronica, but I find these are not adequate labels for Abney Park.  They have Alternative features and a Rock influence.  They tie in electronic pieces, but also use accordions and fiddles.  Like much of the Steampunk scene they are into ideas of sailing, exploration, and sea empires.  Due to this genre focus, the strongest influence is probably Sea Shanties and Sailors Chanties, also called Worksongs, rather than the Electronica or Alternative Rock scenes.

Abney Park Band Poster

A bit more discussion of Steampunk subculture is probably needed to totally get Abney Park. Steampunk started as a sub-genre of science fiction often dealing with alternative histories.  In the world of Steampunk steam is still the dominant form of generating energy, though early electric inventions such as vacuum tubes are sometimes prominent as well.  Jules Verne, HG Wells, and other early sci-fi writers formed the basis for the anachronistic technology of the Steampunk genre.

Both as a sub-genre and, in the case of Abney Park and its fans, as a subculture Steampunk obsesses with the Victorian Era and England.  The things associated with the era like sea travel, early exploration/archaeology, and empires play out prominently in Steampunk.  In the case of Abney Park, they combine sea travel with science fiction or supernatural ideas like Aether travel and the dark horrors that strike a crew at sea.  This band represents a story as well as music.  The band itself plays out its history like a group of Steampunk adventurers traveling the Aether to deal with early science and have grand adventures of exploration.  They wear elaborate stage costumes and have assumed characters such as Captain Roberts, shown at right, the lead singer and 'Captain' of the crew or Dan Cederman, right bottom, the scientist of the crew and guitarist.

It is worth noting that these later albums by Abney Park feature a different line-up and a shift towards Steampunk from the band's origin as a Gothic Rock band.  I was just recently exposed to the band so I am not sure how there earlier music and story morphed into the Steampunk coolness they are today.

The music of Abney Park might be limited in exposure due to its strong association with a small and distinct subculture, but it has all the right elements to appeal to a larger audience.  It has a Rock and Electronic mix that has worked for much more popular bands like Linkin Park or Stabbing Westward.  Many of the lyrics deal with lost love and dark feelings which could strike a cord with the angst audience.  Its focus of mixing traditional Sea Shanties and instruments with modern music puts me in mind of the Celtic Punk/Rock scene with bands that I love like Dropkick Murphys.  I can imagine that the crowd that would turn out for an Abney Park concert would deck themselves out in Steampunk gear making it a mix of Science Fiction convention and a gang of Juggalos in full costume.  I find that I really like the music and style of the band even more than the costumes and story they present.  This isn't just a gimmick band designed to appeal to a small click of people.  It is a talented band fusing traditional music with modern ideas and twisted sci-fi themes.

Abney Park Poster

Also, they are playing Spokane at the Knitting Factory in April for those interested.  I personally fell in love with Abney Park's music and it reminds me of my high school days jamming out to Stabbing Westward.  I would recommend this band to Steampunk aficionados and fans of Linkin Park or Stabbing Westward.

Carolina Chocolate Drops - Genuine Negro Jig (2010)

Carolina Chocolate Drops

The Carolina Chocolate Drops released a new album, Genuine Negro Jig (2010), a while back and I finally got my hands on it.  I stumbled across this band on NPR and have been grooving on them a lot recently.  They mix in bluegrass and turn of the century black string bands with some modern elements.  This most recent album even brings in a beat boxer who does a stand out job on the new single "Hit 'Em Up Style" (originally by Blu Cantrell I believe) in the video at the bottom.

First off, a hint of background on this crazy, fun band.  They are an African-American band that self stylized their music as 'black string band,' a type of music most of us albino northerners are probably not familiar with.  It is close to bluegrass and hillbilly music from the 1920s and 30s, but has a bit more emphasis on soulful lyrics and the gourd banjo.  This band ties in elements of the one string banjo, fiddle music, jug, and even as mentioned above, beat boxing.  The band's website says they met on a Yahoo user group and formed after meeting a little known black fiddler Joe Thompson.  They started by creating a tribute to Thompson and trying to keep his music alive, but the mix of modern and old is as present in their music as in their creation.  Now they have released a number of albums and are adding members to the band.

I highly recommend this band and album to fans of bluegrass and old-time fiddle music.

Hit Em Up Style