Is Folk the new black?

Is Folk the new black? Considering the amount of product the style is shifting at the moment you could be right in thinking so. Here then are commentaries on three of the latest offerings to tempt you away from all that Pop and Indie nonsense you know you’re really all too old to be bothering with anymore – two from these very shores and the third from parts Scandic.

Thomas Dybdahl

First up we present Thomas Dybdahl‘s EP. The boy Dybdahl hales from Norway and already has four albums to his credit. This ep is the opening salvo in his attempt to create some market interest in the UK. Song one ‘Be A Part’ has a reasonable Country-ish, strumalong flavour to it and would go down pretty well in the background of a beer garden afternoon. ‘From Grace’ is rather more earnest and needy and leans too close to James Blunt, despite the above average backing performances, for my taste. ‘Pale Green Eyes’ starts off nicely with some dreamy xylophone noodling but then when the vocals come in there’s a bit of a WTF? moment before the whole thing morphs into a fairly interesting duet. The juxtaposition between the fast and slow parts is though unfortunately not handled in the best fashion. Lastly ‘Stay Home’ also gets off to a slow start – picked acoustic guitar and swoony violin. The deeper vocals hinted at on the previous track make a more convincing appearance although as time goes on they do start to sound a bit freak-on-the-end-of-a-phone so possibly you’d prefer to go out somewhere else than hang out with TD as he yearns away.

The Destroyers

Off to Birmingham next for The Destroyers. I’ve no idea what 15 is in Latin but that’s how many make up this thoroughly envigorating troupe (think Gogol Bordello or A Hawk and A Hacksaw and you’re on the right track). They’re ‘Out Of Babel’ single is three excellent minutes of no nonsense Balkan-inspired knees-up, whilst b-side ‘Where Has The Money Gone?’ comes across like Captain Beefheart fronting a Pogues/Fall supergroup. Having said all of that, their own description on MySpace as “The Prodigy meets Borat” is equally apt. You need to get hold of this and make it part of your pre-pub soundtrack, grab the album whenever it comes out and see them live the first chance you get.

Smoke Fairies

Bringing up the rear we have London-based duo Smoke Fairies who offer up a more Americana-ised version of Folk on their Frozen Heart ep although they definitely have more than one string to their bow. Track one, ‘Fences’, brought to mind PJ Harvey in its recounting of a forced move out of a city habitat and the easy pleasures of spending rather than saving. The title track employs a successful mix of slide guitar and Sandy Denny-esque vocal duetting to great effect in a tale of fading love. Song three, ‘He’s Moving On’, has a sparse yet warm sound as Jessica & Catherine track the progress of a restless male. At number four ‘Morning Light’ actually initially had me thinking of Madonna circa-Music but as it progresses there is clearly more depth and feeling within it’s four minutes then those initial few seconds hint at. Finishing things off comes ‘We Had Lost Our Minds’ which returns to the stylings of the title track to close out a very satisfying listening experience.

In all then it’s UK 2 – ROW 0 in Folk Division One here this time round, with strong hints that the brash sounds of youth as evinced by the leading young chart bothering bands feted by myself and other scribes won’t have the legs to outlast either the maturity or playfulness of the two homegrown efforts described above. Record companies interested in the long game should pay attention, although good luck to them in actually weening us off the indie bottle.

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