It should be no surprise that Words Are Dead, the debut release by Portland's Horse Feathers should show up here on 30 Days, 30 Albums. I featured the album on my show two weeks ago, and I've generally been in love with the band's sound since I first heard "Falling Through the Roof" at the end of the summer - the track is one of those rare, hold-your-breath-to-listen songs that creeps up your spine and gives you goosebumps, while spreading and expanding like a wine stain on a pale tablecloth.
The album is somewhat more delicate than most of the music I've been listening to lately. There are only two members in Horse Feathers - Justin Ringle and Peter Broderick - and while the instrumentation on the album includes guitar, banjo, mandolin, saw, piano and a touch of percussion, the most dominant sounds are the strings (violin, viola, cello) and Ringle's striking vocals - themselves a strange combination of strings and rusty woodwinds, a balance of smoothness and feathered edges. It's a voice that may put some people off of the band, but it's completely central to the Horse Feathers sound, and I can't imagine the songs would be nearly as powerful with different vocals.
I always have difficulty comparing artists to other artists - small things that I notice may not be the best way of relating one band's sound to another. Iron & Wine comes to mind when listening to this record though, and Holopaw (strangely enough, because I don't really like them). But I think if you enjoy any kind of sparse, beautiful, delicate music, you should at least give Horse Feathers a listen.
hehe... I just unloaded my copy of this today. I'm not really feeling the delicate stuff lately. It's good for the genre though.
Posted by: Rich | Monday, November 13, 2006 at 03:33 PM