The Eastern Swell: One Day, A Flood
4.5/5 IsThisMusic, 19th Sept, 2016
A versatile troupe, The Eastern Swell. Whether helmed by the vocals of Lainie Urquhart or her male co-mariners, Chris Reeve and Neil Collman, their debut album rocks like a destroyer and glides like a gondola. Lead single Rattling Bones kicks off with a frenetic bass riff, a fast-approaching storm suddenly softening to an elegiac love song that rebuilds thrillingly, the chords taking unexpected directions till the bass riff returns, the guitar solo joins it and the swell intensifies. Propelled by the articulate drumming of Andy Glover, What’s Done Is Done smears urgent rhythms with reverberations of psychedelia, vocals ascending quite gloriously – shades of Crosby, Stills and Nash locking heads and guitars in some blustery arena. CSN surface again in Too Little, Too Late whilst 1000 Yard Stare launches itself from an incantation recalling the Zombies of Odessey and Oracle spliced with a nervy psych folk nugget.
Dancing Zombie Blues, meanwhile, presents a different sort of Zombie, one who would bang his head to Hawkwind toying with the Gene Vincent riff book A repetitive vocal riff from Led Zeppelin’s Rock & Roll grapples its way aboard Quick As A Whip. It’s a knowing steal, surely: I like its shamelessness.
The band recommends listening to this album at a single sitting. Here I would issue a caveat – late night listener beware, unless you relish your plangent reveries being interrupted by tidal waves of wigged-out rock. Back on Led Zep III the band got the Nordic bludgeon of Immigrant Song out the way first before clearing the deck for modal folk and sweeping blues.
In calmer waters, the gentle acoustic Temples and Trader Horne-ish Muckish Mountain are top drawer folk rock. The records closes with Run Down Country Palace, which marries The Cowboy Junkies to a Marshall stack. It’s an invigorating service, with Reverend Wah-Wah presiding. For all its precision and adeptness, One Day, A Flood doesn’t rely on those passages of overly tasteful orchestration which pad out the grooves of a whole host of indie folkies from British Sea Power to The Unthanks. If you choose to listen all the way through you’ll be repaid, and handsomely. Every moment counts with The Eastern Swell.
4.5/5 IsThisMusic, 19th Sept, 2016
A versatile troupe, The Eastern Swell. Whether helmed by the vocals of Lainie Urquhart or her male co-mariners, Chris Reeve and Neil Collman, their debut album rocks like a destroyer and glides like a gondola. Lead single Rattling Bones kicks off with a frenetic bass riff, a fast-approaching storm suddenly softening to an elegiac love song that rebuilds thrillingly, the chords taking unexpected directions till the bass riff returns, the guitar solo joins it and the swell intensifies. Propelled by the articulate drumming of Andy Glover, What’s Done Is Done smears urgent rhythms with reverberations of psychedelia, vocals ascending quite gloriously – shades of Crosby, Stills and Nash locking heads and guitars in some blustery arena. CSN surface again in Too Little, Too Late whilst 1000 Yard Stare launches itself from an incantation recalling the Zombies of Odessey and Oracle spliced with a nervy psych folk nugget.
Dancing Zombie Blues, meanwhile, presents a different sort of Zombie, one who would bang his head to Hawkwind toying with the Gene Vincent riff book A repetitive vocal riff from Led Zeppelin’s Rock & Roll grapples its way aboard Quick As A Whip. It’s a knowing steal, surely: I like its shamelessness.
The band recommends listening to this album at a single sitting. Here I would issue a caveat – late night listener beware, unless you relish your plangent reveries being interrupted by tidal waves of wigged-out rock. Back on Led Zep III the band got the Nordic bludgeon of Immigrant Song out the way first before clearing the deck for modal folk and sweeping blues.
In calmer waters, the gentle acoustic Temples and Trader Horne-ish Muckish Mountain are top drawer folk rock. The records closes with Run Down Country Palace, which marries The Cowboy Junkies to a Marshall stack. It’s an invigorating service, with Reverend Wah-Wah presiding. For all its precision and adeptness, One Day, A Flood doesn’t rely on those passages of overly tasteful orchestration which pad out the grooves of a whole host of indie folkies from British Sea Power to The Unthanks. If you choose to listen all the way through you’ll be repaid, and handsomely. Every moment counts with The Eastern Swell.
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