This is the New York band’s 8th release and their first for 15 years.
On paper a global friendly blend of old time Country and Eastern music seems promising. However, in practice it's a combination that works well on lighter material but falls flat on songs with more serious content.
The Horseflies' sound is dominated by the lively fiddle playing of Judy Hyman, who also writes two fine instrumentals 'Rafting' and 'Three Shoes' which are at times reminiscent of the swirling Asian grooves of UK’s Black Star Liner.
Where the album fails is in the ill-judged versions of traditional material. The treatment of 'Drunkard's Child', a public domain song of loneliness within a disfunctional family, is far too glossy to make the pathos convincing.
This is not as bad as an unforgiveable bland rendering of 'Oh Death',a song immortalised by Ralph Stanley's heartrending a cappella version in 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou?' Here the plea to the grim reaper to "spare me over to another year" is void of any spiritual or emotional tension.
|
The disparity between words and music is also apparent in an original song 'Baghdad Children' where lines like 'baghdad children have no place to hide/ when bombs come falling from the sky' are inexplicably set to a up-tempo dance beat. However well intentioned the sentiments of this song are, any sense of anger or outrage at the children's plight is rendered meaningless.
The fact that the backing is practically identical to that used to accompany lines such as "cluck little chicken/cluck little hen" from another traditional song - 'Cluck Old Hen' only serves to emphasise the lack of variation and sensitivity in the arrangements.
A couple of stronger tracks – ‘Burn A House And Burn It Down’ and ‘14 Reasons’ don’t do enough to make up for these grave missteps.
|
