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Review: 'BROKEN BOAT'
'Small Defeats'   

-  Label: 'Self Released'
-  Genre: 'Indie' -  Release Date: '21st July 2014'

Our Rating:
This young trio from St Albans in Hertfordshire are not into the rock and roll lifestyle. A publicity shot has them posed on a cosy settee knitting, reading and holding a Rubik cube; a teapot is behind them, a mug in front and a banjo propped alongside. It's a homely image that matches the down to earth style of their music.

Singer and song writer Daniel Bahrami met multi instrumentalist Brendan Kearney at Plymouth University where they were both studying architecture.They made one EP of gentle acoustic tunes called Peace And Quiet and the follow up began life as a modest 5 song demo.

Somewhere along the line they gained more confidence and an extra member (Jess Hart). The sound gradually expanded to include horns, strings, trumpets, accordions, pedal steel, banjo, and triangles. The result is an excellent debut full length with 11 tracks ranging from introspective folk ballads to rousing shanty-esque tunes.

As a group that has done cover versions of Devendra Banhart, José González and The Decemberists, you'll get a fair idea where they're coming from.

The title track - Small Defeats - advocates an open mind, open heart response to life's little setbacks. Basement Days is another tune where things are going so well that they "feel a glow and living's fine".

It's not that they don't have down moments but, by rejecting pessimism, having friends far away (Pencil Memories) and thinking about ageing (Time Takes Us All) are topics which are treated with a melancholy languor rather than gloomy soul searching.

There's a lightness of touch even when the song is about having an argument in a relationship; the exchange of words between Daniel and Jess on Morning Rain is so good natured that any heartache feels transient.

Best of all is Water & Wine, a tender love song with the male as the vulnerable half : "I'm the bent and broken half of a better whole".

The warmth of Small Defeats makes this an album that will put you in a summery mood on even the greyest of days.

Broken Boat's website
  author: Martin Raybould

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BROKEN BOAT - Small Defeats