I don’t remember where I first heard about The Head and the Heart, but in typical fashion, once I did I immediately started hearing about them everywhere else.
This Seattle-based band is usually compared to the string of indie-folk groups that have dominated the musical landscape in recent years — the Mumford & Sons, Fleet Foxes and Avett Brothers of the world. Not bad company to be in, for sure.
The Random iTunes Fairy has served up another track from Adele’s debut album, 19, apparently still derisive (or appreciative) of my dismissal of it a few weeks back.
This track is better than the last one I featured, though still fall short of the material on 21. The production is fuller and Adele, as always, is in fine voice. But the tune itself falls a little short.
I’ve never been much of an Elvis Presley aficionado. I really enjoy his hits when I hear them, but I don’t play them on my own nor do I know the stories behind them.
The curiosity that has led me to explore the early work of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel and other acts who got their start before I was born has just never expanded to Elvis. That’s probably because those other artists are songwriters, while Presley made his name as “just” a performer.
Almost all of the albums I’m writing about over the next couple of weeks were purchased during the past month — some as recently as a day or two ago.
The lone exception is today’s features record — Ron Sexsmith’s Forever Endeavour — which I bought all the way back in February.
In fact, this was the first new album I picked up in 2013.
Neko Case epitomizes the need to hear an album multiple times before rendering a verdict. Her records are dense and nuanced… they sneak up on you and sometimes risk passing you by.
Case’s 2006 album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood remains her best work, and the epitome of her earthy alternative style. That album is so good that it’s hard not to compare her subsequent records to it, to their detriment.
That’s not really fair to the new work, but I guess that’s the curse of success.
