Graham Reid | | <1 min read
This award-winning Australian
folk-rock-blues outfit is much tougher than their fragile name
suggests and over five albums, an EP and considerable touring at
home and in the States (where they have recorded in Nashville, this
one in Minneapolis) they have made a name for their dry, spare and
harmony-embellished songs where emotions are worn upfront.
They aren't averse to a little melodic
pop (the languid, 50s sounding Beautiful Night here which
slurs like Rickie Lee Jones, the chipper and radio-friendly folk-pop
Falling and Day
Dreamer), but mostly their material is grounded in dark and
religious Americana (the apocalyptic Waitsean quasi-gospel Moses
and the Lamb, Temptation about
Christ and the Devil in the wilderness) and songs of plaintive
desperation and loss (Somedays, Goodbye Darlin)
with glimpses of redemption.
Set against
spacious backdrops of angular and off-kilter guitars, raw percussion,
banjo, ancient piano, upright bass and the like, these 11 songs are
gently lifted by the harmonies of sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna
Simpson who – along with singer/guitarist Josh Cunningham – craft
the leanest of lyrics which sketch in emotions and discomforts and
more than narratives.
Along that lineage which runs from the troubled religiosity of the Louvin Brothers to soul-baring Lucinda Williams – which means the melodic and engaging Waifs keep fine company.
Like the sound of this? Then check out this from Sweden.
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