Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Insert Joke About the Dutch Boy with His Finger in the Dike Here
The new record got
reviewed in ctrl.Alt.Country, a Dutch online magazine. Luckily, Kate works with someone who speaks Dutch, and he kindly translated it for us. Point in fact: we are not bitter at ALL that Mac's side project with Bob Frank and John Murry got more stars than us. Also, we are sure the part about being "unremarkable" is just a translation issue. Surely they meant "remarkable"?
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After a title-less EP that appeared last spring, "Songs from the Pine Room" is the first complete CD from the American group Axton Kincaid. That quintet built around singer-songwriter Kate Howser has twelve charmingly breezy alt country pieces on offer, here and there spiced with a strong pinch of bluegrass. In so doing, they follow a trail blazed by several similar acts such as Freakwater, Jeff & Vida, and Jim and Jennie & the Pinetops. The disc's most striking number is one suffused with melancholic reserve, played with a hurried, nervously picked mandolin: a cover of "I Want to Be Adored," by the once highly successful British pop collective the Stone Roses. With the exception of "Who's Gonna Pour My Whiskey When You're Gone?"--a jaunty country melody about the loss of a barman whose skills are in demand in the market--which she wrote with bassist Ryan Waggoner and mandolin player Jen Daunt, Howser created the rest of the material on her own. And thereby she reveals herself to be not only an excellent singer, but also one with a fine sense of song in her fingers.
(Note: from now on, this is going to be Kate's pickup line)"Songs from the Pine Room" proceeds from rather unremarkable to a real treat for those who enjoy the twangy stuff. For us, Axton Kincaid's strongest trumps, in addition to Howser's voice and songs, are the slick harmonizing of the other group members, and the especially functional use of instruments such as the mandolin and pedal steel.
(Translated by Scott Rasmussen)
posted by axton kincaid #
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