Lionshare

There is very little to say about The Broken Family Band’s Poor Little Thing – it is whimsical, country pop. It is drowsy and quietly beautiful. You relax, become easy-going, your critical guard is let down and you decide that it’s rather good. I love the softly tragic lines about ” you can’t go from town to town letting everybody down and not expect some of it to catch up with you.” You listen to their cover of The Palace Brothers ‘I send my Love to You’ and enjoy it even more than the previous one, which you’ve already forgotten, meaning that you’ll have to have another listen . . .

Trouble is, you don’t reach the CD player quick enough and, as you’re listening to a promo copy, you find yourself listening to Lionshare’s ‘The City Will Go On’ (also part of Harvest Time Recording subscription series of three 7″ singles). I sober up instantly and stop referring to myself in the second person. People say that you should enjoy life and not spend time being sad, but I disagree. When you are sad you are truly unique. Sadness is a solitary pleasure, wherein the self glows, nay burns, with individuality.

Lionshare produce effortlessly atmospheric music, like Will Oldham crossed with Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Their second song, ‘Out in the Woods,’ is unbearably poignant with aching cello and strange, pained Eastern European strings. Truly, this is soul music.

After this, Of Montreal’s ‘I was a landscape . . .’ could not help seeming bathetic. Which is not to say it is without merit, sounding rather like some of the folktronica that Patrick Wolf pulled off so well on Lycanthopy. It is maturer than Wolf, less sprightly and excitable, but also perhaps less exciting. ‘Where Eagles Dare’ is harder and faster, but suffers from the lack of perspective that often accompanies solo projects where the artist (Kevin Barnes, in this case) has recorded everything themselves.