![]() On “Weights & Measures” they put forth their most obvious sentiment: “I was prepared to love you/ I never expect anything of you”. There seems to be a desire from the band to make grand statements with their work but once again, after listening through the EP I’m left with the unfavourable feeling that the message to be taken from these songs has flown over me. Perhaps the desire to break free isn’t completely gone but there’s not any real redemption lyrically or musically to suggest a happier ending, implying that he stuck the marriage out until the end, or at least until his wife died. ![]() “In the morning I’m light/ in the evening I’m heavy” he sings, letting the doubt seep through. The song continues, telling of how illness strikes down the new wife and how the husband struggles to keep himself “steady”. The EP begins with the image of two young people being married as their families gather and celebrate the occasion. Bible Belt is more centred around tales of old homely times where people might travel around in wagons and where (rather predictably) family is the centre of it all. I should say though that the EP isn’t as morose as the likes of the lyrical matter on The First Days Of Spring which was just the sound of Charlie Fink trying to make sense of being single once again and not really coming to any sort of overwhelming conclusion or finding any real revelation at the end of it all. If The Chambers that was the sound of them wanting to break free from the restraints of expectant and restricting parents then Bible Belt is the sound of them giving up and accepting the situation their family ties have put them in. On their second EP, the band has taken a somewhat gloomier path to creation compared to the jauntier songs on The Chambers & The Valves. (“Lion’s Den” recalls his work with The National, when it explodes into a cacophony of horns near the song’s end.As much as I wanted to dismiss comparisons to Noah & the Whale, Dry the River do seem to mirror their London counterparts in a certain respect. ![]() Much of the album, however, is more comparable to a band like Shearwater, packed with rousing, multi-instrumental builds that support bolster Peter Liddle’s tenor voice. The songs benefit from strong production work by Peter Katis, who brings a warmth to the guitars and the songs’ dramatic swells. In these they display a songwriting style that’s heavy on radio-friendly hooks, which will no doubt earn them comparisons to fellow countrymen Mumford & Sons. Musically, it helps that the influences they display on their debut LP, Shallow Bed, touch on more than rustic Americana.ĭry the River’s members come from the U.K.’s DIY emo and hardcore scene, and that shows through on the massive chorus in New Ceremony, or the power pop crescendo in No Rest. The American subject matter is a little tough to chew when it pops up in their lyrics (“Shaker Hymns” is probably the strangest, describing the specifics of a Shaker wedding ceremony from a first-person perspective), but it’s not really all that more disingenuous than similar stuff coming from some of the Yanks on the scene. When we already have to swallow Appalachian-inspired folk hailing from the Pacific Northwest ( Fleet Foxes) and bluegrass-tinted folk from the Iceland ( Of Monster’s and Men), must we now import our roots rock from overseas? Dry the River are a folk-rock group from the Stratford neighborhood in northeast London, who sing about the Bible Belt, Shaker hymns, and other typically American subjects. British Americana, huh? That seems to be stretching it a bit.
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