Review: The Head And The Heart - s/t

Artist: The Head And The Heart
Title: s/t
Format: Full-length
Year: 2010
Label: self-released in 2010, rereleased by Sub Pop in 2011
Genre: Folk / indie rock
Rating: 84 / 100

Normally I only review bands that have released a new album just in the past couple of weeks, of course I will sometimes make an exeption, some weeks ago I made that rare exeption for atmospheric black metal project Petrychor, one of the most recent signings of Khrysanthoney (love that label), now I will make this exeption for The Head And The Heart. "Why?" you might ask, well they recently got signed to Sub Pop (beginning to love that label too), they recently released a video for Lost in My Mind (posted below), ánd I read they rerecorded some tracks of this album. Alltogether I see enough reasons to review this pretty awes0me album, even 'though it has been a year since it was released

Ok, that was an awful lot of text without mentioning any of the characteristics of their music, which is a shame because The Head And The Heart's music is definitely worth mentioning. This Seattle based sextet plays the kind of folk music which probably isn't such a new thing to those who have followed the big chunks of folk music coming out of, primarily, America. It mixes the more traditional elements of folk music (gentle guitar picking, continuous vocal melodies/harmonies) with some more modern pop/rock influences (4/4 drum patterns, electric bass), making The Head And The Heart highly accessible to those who never really got into this new kind of folk music. Saying this, I finally realise why they got signed to Sub Pop after the release of this debut album.

This kind of accessibility places them somewhere next to Mumford & Sons indeed, I am not going to ignore it, but where Mumford & Sons often use a more uptempo bluegrass'ish sound (thanks to that fabulous banjo), The Head And The Heart often stick to the more introvert folk sound, just occasionally accompanied by popular rocky instrumentation. It would be just a bit too much honour to place these two bands qualitatively on the same level, mainly because of the amazing renewing power of Mumford & Sons, but The Head And The Heart is definitely good enough to not get superfluous.

Today was a beautiful day, my face has rarely been as warm as this afternoon, laying in the grass, just occasionally opening my eyes, checking whether all the flying frisbees and footballs weren't about to hit my slightly tanned face. Making it even more beautiful were the beautiful tones which were coming from my headphones, giving me the ability to pull the whole The Head And The Heart debut album through my eardrums, just before the sunny rooms of the Linnaeus were again about to spoil my head with the exeptionally abstract principles of Thermodynamics.

Spread the love,

Selwin.