Boston eight-piece make their debut. It’s nice too.
A super collection of country-tinged off-radar pop, 12 Tales incorporates
influences such as classical (Mozart/Beethoven) sweeping string arrangements
to the mid-60s Lennon and Wilson (Beach Boys) palate, through to the indie
scene of say Belle And Sebastian and Camera Obscura. Thrown into the mix,
there’s Folk and Bluegrass which all sit neatly next to each other, some feat
considering the stylistic direction it tends to wander.
Because they’ve all studied music, they bring together differing influences.
Young Republic are college students who been gathering a considerable live fanbase,
selling music on CDRs at gigs, with many of those finally put together here. The
album’s been recorded in all manner of places like an old church, bedrooms and
classrooms, but you’d never think so as the resulting product is excellent.
Just about every track is gorgeous, even the rockier ones have a warmth to them
like opener Girl In A Tree, and Paper Ships. Their Bluegrass liking
shines through on the fiddle-lead Excuses To See Young accompanied by some
sweet girlie backups, segued by the country shuffle of Girl From The Country
States, where again, the fiddle boosts the country musical colours, and
splashes of brass that make a significant impact.
Young Republic aren’t reliant on multiple instrumentation to make an
impression however, as the stripped back Real Love drifts nicely with vocal
and acoustic guitar, until he arrival of flute and violin, giving the ballad
some wonderful textures. They round-off with a really gorgeous Country/Bluegrass
swinger: piano, fiddle, drum shuffles, brass all competing for their place.
1. Girl In A Tree
2. Modern Plays
3. Excuses To See You
4. Girl From The Northern States
5. Everybody Look Better In Black And White
6. She’s Not Waiting Here This Time
7. She Comes And Goes
8. Real Love (at the end)
9. Paper Ships
10. When I See Your Eyes I Swear To God That Worlds Collide
11. Blue Skies
12. Goodbye Town
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2008.
