 |
Category: Music
Sydney-based Derwent River Star's debut album is an amazing achievement; produced by Tony Dupe - best known for his solo project Saddleback - it is filled with lush atmospheric folk music, with its roots placed firmly within the depths of post-rock. At the heart of the music are melodic female vocals which suit the music perfectly, teamed with the usual rock setup of guitar, bass and drums. These are complemented by a variety of stringed instruments, plus piano and harmonica - just to name a few. A broad range of sounds are explored during the course of the album, with each track being wonderfully executed.
For an album which is titled The Winter Dark and accompanied by cover art featuring leafless trees amongst a snow filled landscape, you would expect the music to also display a certain amount of coldness, but that is not the case: in fact it's the very opposite. While the intensity of the instruments changes throughout the album, in turn affecting the mood of the tracks, each track still radiates a sense of warmth. The album is solid from beginning to end, however a few tracks standout against the others due to their exquisite instrumentals and exceptional songwriting - best showcased in 'Bottles & Boats', 'Jettison,' and 'Dust'.
The Winter Dark captures a band with a distinct Australian essence, yet is unique and nothing short of beautiful. The amount of detail that has gone into the tracks is outstanding; every lyric, every chord and every beat fits brilliantly, not only within each individual track but within the album as a whole. It is rare for a debut album to be resoundingly complete, but this is a challenge that Derwent River Star have not only accomplished but exceeded.
 (Leanne Simpson)
2:03 AM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|