09.02.06

There is no “i” in “team” or “Hollyfelds”

Posted in some albums we done liked others we ain't - September 2nd, 2006 at 8:26 pm by Cricket

Denver keeps throwing things at me that I utterly love. First Drag the River, and now The Hollyfelds. Denver, I feel like you’ve been holding out on me, where was all this goodness when I was there a decade ago? Maybe you thought I wouldn’t have been ready for it then, but I sure am now.

The Hollyfelds are a five piece group bringing twangy traditionalist Americana in way that feels sharp, fresh and new and simultaneously like it could have been made any time in the last hundred years. [Sounds like a low rent version of the Be Good Tanyas to me.--Mimi] There’s something completely western about their sound that leaves me feeling I’m missing something by listening to it in Tennessee instead of on some desolate Western prairie. [Insert stock joke about sending you out to the desolate prairie.--Mimi] I close my eyes during their songs and expect to open then them and find myself in some old west saloon, drinking whiskey as the sheriff bangs through the door and the card games stop. [No, that's just me. I knocked over the bottle.--Mimi]

They’ve got a four song EP out, File under “H” for “Toy”, and the only disappointment I have is that it isn’t six songs longer. It opens with “The Empress of Wyoming,” the dobro ringing through it, giving the track the lost high lonesome sound that works as well for the Colorado mountains as the hills of Virginia.

“Indecision” makes me want to put on a skirt and cowboy boots and dance around the living room. There’s love and loneliness in the lyrics: “Oh I’m smug and love-struck, shocked and shy/jealous, bored and overwhelmed/How much I want to move on from where I am right now.” The harmonies are used here to excellent effect. This is true through out their songs, but especially noticeable here. I defy you to listen to this without tapping your toes just a bit. The song winds down a kicks back up at the end, carrying you along with it in a way only really good songs can do. [Ok, being real now. This song is fun and bouncy. I think the vocals are weak, though. That's aside from my loathing of female singers. The lead singer has very little vocal rang, which seems to me to be more forgivable in male singers for some reason. Jay Farrar, anyone? She reminds me some of Neko Case, actually, but not as annoying. Maybe Jenny Lewis, but not as good.--Mimi]

Somehow, “Old Carbon” seems to swing away from the Western sound to more traditional folk-style country. The songwriting here is more simplistic, but doesn’t suffer because of that. There’s romance here rather than pain, without being sappy or trite. “Old carbon, that’s all that you are/With pressure and time and some luck there’s a diamond.” Eryn Hoerig’s voice here brings the emotional level of the song up to where it needs to be. She pierces me in way I think I hope for when I listen to Jenny Lewis or Neko Case, but somehow she achieves more than they do, takes me to places with her singing that they can’t. [Huh. Yeah, we do that a lot, folks.--Mimi] [Yes, apparently we're thinking the same thing even when we aren't agreeing.—Cricket]

The EP closes with “Dan’s Song” which would be tear-inducing if the musical arrangement wasn’t completely uplifting. It’s the story of man committing suicide on his back porch set at a tempo that fills me with conflicting feelings of misery, loneliness, and an oddly satisfying feeling that there’s still joy to be had in life, even if some people can’t find it. The lyrics here are so grim, it’s surely only the voices and music that give me the sense hope of hope I find in the song.

I was laying down listening to this, thinking a little about the coming weekend, my plans for the weekend and suddenly it occurred to me “Oh man, this is not the band I’m going to see tonight! They are halfway across the country!” and I was totally disappointed. There is a something about good traditional Americana that feels like back porch music, and suddenly I find myself obsessed with the idea of sitting on a wide farmhouse porch with the Hollyfelds, out in the plains somewhere, drinking and toe-tapping while they play. They’re playing around Denver through out September, so if you can, catch them, see if they really do approximate the old back porch feeling and report back. Otherwise check out their EP and drop them a line. You can download them at PodsafeAudio or just give them a listen on MySpace. I’ll be over here not so patiently waiting for more from these guys.

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