Nancy Elizabeth - Dancing - Album Review

Nancy Elizabeth's third album, has more persuasions to the 'Traditional' party than a beaming moon-faced friend at the door with two kegs under their arms: reductive triad and pentatonic harmonies throughout the supporting instruments, whilst her boundless prodigious vocals take the tunes through various octaves and modes. Guests, we have another who won't be 'the Devil's whore.' This album of songs is attractive for describing a heart both brave and vulnerable; as if alerted, creeping the stairs in the night, issuing bluffs to an invisible intruder. It is beautifully recorded, the piano birthing specters from its notes, filling a dining-hall empty of mortals. 'Dancing' could have been a truly intimate expression if it wasn't so precisely performed and produced.

[2013.02.12] for NARC Magazine.

Two Gallants - We Are Undone - Album Review

Many of the sounds on ‘We Are Undone,’ enforce those which have been enjoyed previously from the Bay Area duo posing as Joyce’s bounders: raw garage stomps, finger-plucked bluesy Americana, singing paralleling pronounced guitar melodies, sweet folk refrains.     

The playlist of this fifth album is carefully organised to stimulate at every turn, with the personalities of each song often being routed in a different style, timbre or space. Any roughness is deliberately sought from Stephens and Vogel as their long journey playing music together has rendered their thoughts and musicianship united. Highlights include the title track; with the wind in its sails and celtic undertones, and Heartbreak; a deliciously tender love song swept up in arpeggios and glistening percussion.

[2015.01.19] for NARC Magazine.