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Be Good Tanyas .co.uk - the unofficial Be Good Tanyas website
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Hello Love |
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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 06 November 2006 |
Hello Love is the third Be Good Tanyas album
Click here to buy Hello Love from HMV - with free delivery
Track Listing
1. Human Thing
2. For The Turnstiles
3. A Thousand Tiny Pieces
4. Ootishenia
5. A Little Blues
6. Scattered Leaves
7. Hello Love
8. Nobody Cares For Me
9. Out Of The Wilderness
10. Song For R
11. What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?
12. Crow Waltz
13. When Doves Cry
Reviews
HMV
There's something of a supernatural feel about The Be Good Tanyas' music. Three modern Canadian ladies with a penchant for past sonics they may be, but when Frazey Ford sings a song her vocals have a tendency to dissolve into a low, passionate drawl that somehow feels subconscious – as though she's detached herself from the here and now and is channelling a long forgotten voice from history. It's eerily beautiful.
From the opening song on Hello Love – the tentative and fragile original Human Thing – you're taken aback by the emotional directness of the Tanyas' approach. This is acoustic Americana, yes, and the sound is a smorgasbord of folk, country, blues, gospel and even jazz, but the knowledgable nature of the music never descends into cleverness for cleverness' sake. The songs are straightforward, live-sounding shades of loveliness, with the emphasis on atmosphere and feeling. The ethereal harmonies being capable of lifting your tired old heart, a simple chord change somehow sounding spiritual (listen to their utterly lovely cover of Sean Hayes' stirring A Thousand Tiny Pieces for evidence).
The Tanyas are Ford, Samantha Parton and Trish Klein, and even though their instruments are the weapons of bluegrass – mandolin, banjo, ukelele, harmonicas – the music is anything but one-dimensional hoedown rip-it-ups. Just listen to the John Lee Hooker-ish blues of Out Of The Wilderness, which sounds like something bruised and smelling, pulled barely alive from a bayou swamp. Not bad for a group of contemporary Vancouver-ites. Closer to their Canadian roots is a wonderful cover version of the 1974 Neil Young track For The Turnstiles, which, with Klein's banjo pulsing over acoustic guitar and faraway vocals, approaches an alt-country dream. Very wonderful indeed.
Fellow admirers of previous musical landscapes Old Crow Medicine Show provide backing on the instrumental Crow Waltz (which does what it says on the tin) as well as joining in on the swaying good timer A Little Blues. For those looking for something that strays off the beaten path, however, wait around for the hidden track – a sultry, beckoning cover of Prince's When Doves Cry (“Animals strike curious poses” remains one of the more entertaining lyrics of all time).
Three albums in and the Tanyas continue to excel, pulling in influences from all musical quarters, creating something ambient and angelic in the process. This is more halo than hello
American Roots
I’m having a hard time getting Hello Love out of my CD changer. It’s an infectious, convincing and affective collection of songs. Nearly every song does exactly what The Tanyas want it to do. Of the original songs, most turn over soil of some new territory where slow, groovy, head nodding songs easily sprout: “Human Thing” and “Ootischenia” find their own sweet, bubbling grooves. These songs do what “The Littlest Birds (sing the sweetest songs)” did on their previous album Blue Horse: music, melodies and lyrics match up to make intimate songs with hook and charisma infectious enough to get heads bobbing smooth and bodies swaying languid.
A couple notches slower are “Hello Love” and “Song For R.”. The first is a wonderfully delicate song about reuniting with an old friend, and gives a feel of longing almost released - an itch rubbed softly but not quite scratched. The second is the soul-wrenching “Song For R.” about the ache of having to watch a friend suffer with humanity - It echoes in my soul like the cello resonance and piano reverberations that haunt this beautiful song. Similarly, “A Thousand Tiny Pieces” (written by Sean Hayes) is just as lingering; I think it is in these unhurried, poignant songs where The Tanyas are most affecting.
At the other end of their range are the spunky “A Little Blues” accompanied by Old Crow, and the Prince track “When Doves Cry” (hidden as a tasty desert at the end). I haven’t yet been able to keep a smile off my face when that song comes on. But as good as this unexpected funky little treat is, their version of Neil Young’s “For The Turnstiles” is as soulful and heartfelt as any version of a Neil song I’ve heard.
Read the full review here
Slant Magazine
Wat makes British Colombian trio The Be Good Tanyas—Frazey Ford, Samantha Parton, and Trish Klein—distinct from so many other alt-country acts, other than their all-female stringband gimmick, is that they aren't limited by their old-timey frame of reference. Theirs is still a stripped-down, rootsy sound, but what elevates their work are the different sources of tension at play: they write contemporary folk lyrics but play twangy, traditional folk arrangements; they keep their folk songs off-balance by using blues-inspired rhythmic structures; they layer their three-part harmonies in unconventional ways that give their deliveries an often haunting depth. Those tensions were the focus of 2001's Blue Horse and particularly 2003's Chinatown, but they've been downplayed on the new Hello Love. Full review here
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 November 2006 )
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