Across the River--a Review
Jan. 2nd, 2010 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vdanskI love the duo of Fiske and Herrera, a pair of acoustic musicians who perform in the area. Jared Fiske has a voice like 10 year old scotch, while Amy Herrera has such depth to her voice that the sweetness always comes as a surprise. Their earlier album, "Just Breathe", has songs that hit on a level beyond words; my favorite, "The Violin" is available at Lala.com, and I'd encourage you to have a listen.
"Across the River" is better.
The title track is a haunting song from the perspective of Charon, the Ferryman, imagined as an ordinary man with an extraordinary profession, passing down the burden to his son. "You can carry the scythe when I'm gone," the refrain promises, bittersweet and loving.
"Mediocre Man" is a surprise, a love song, oddly optomistic. This optomism is reflected through the majority of the songs, although never easily, never tritely. The world they portray is flawed, often painful, yet profound and beautiful. Even in "Wood Castles", a song of children and childhood, there is some darkness, and even in "She's Moving Tomorrow", the darkest of the songs, there is some light.
My favorite, just edging out "Across the River", is "Orange Stand Island", a song of an immigrant man working to bring his wife and the son he's never met to the United States. It is unsentimental, sometimes harsh, and yet profoundly hopeful.
If you want to listen to something new...try this. I don't think you'll be sorry.
"Across the River" is better.
The title track is a haunting song from the perspective of Charon, the Ferryman, imagined as an ordinary man with an extraordinary profession, passing down the burden to his son. "You can carry the scythe when I'm gone," the refrain promises, bittersweet and loving.
"Mediocre Man" is a surprise, a love song, oddly optomistic. This optomism is reflected through the majority of the songs, although never easily, never tritely. The world they portray is flawed, often painful, yet profound and beautiful. Even in "Wood Castles", a song of children and childhood, there is some darkness, and even in "She's Moving Tomorrow", the darkest of the songs, there is some light.
My favorite, just edging out "Across the River", is "Orange Stand Island", a song of an immigrant man working to bring his wife and the son he's never met to the United States. It is unsentimental, sometimes harsh, and yet profoundly hopeful.
If you want to listen to something new...try this. I don't think you'll be sorry.
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Date: 2010-01-03 03:37 am (UTC)