This week: two songs about jobs, two mentions of wolves, some invigorating folk from our friends to the north, and a 67-year-old man just might remind you what great soul music sounds like.
Happy Monday.
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Hillsburn – Bury My Heart / Run Down
Hillsburn is a five-piece americana folk-pop band from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Their songs are full of three-part vocal harmonies, lyrical themes of love and perseverance, piano and acoustic guitars with the occasional tasteful brass, and plenty of foot-stomps and hand-claps. The result is a rousing, earnest, inspiring cocktail of indie folk music. It’s all too rare to find modern music this blissfully free of both cynicism and synthesizers.
“Bury My Heart” is an upbeat ode to overcoming heartache that’ll likely have you clapping along about 30 seconds into it.
“Run Down” sounds like something The Head & the Heart would write after listening to “Sail” on repeat for a few hours.
The debut album from Hillsburn is called In the Battle Years. And it’s outstanding.
RIYL: The Oh Hellos, Fleet Foxes, energetic singalongs, generalized happiness, unpretentiousness, Canada
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Wolfie’s Just Fine – It’s a Job
Here’s a great, wistful, airy folk song that’s reminiscent of Gregory Alan Isakov and Blind Pilot.
The debut album from Wolfie’s Just Fine, I Remembered But Then I Forgot, will be released this Friday.
Sidenote: Seriously, who knew Taco had it in him?
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Silences – There’s a Wolf
Sticking with the canidae theme for a minute, here’s a good, spooky little song about a wolf.
Silences began as the solo music endeavor of Irish singer-songwriter Conchúr White, but soon expanded to a full five-piece band, including Christopher Harbinson, Breándan White, Michael Keyes and Jonathan Downing.
Their new EP, Luna, is due out April 15th.
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Walter Martin – Jobs I Had Before I Got Rich & Famous
Ever had a crappy job? Well Walter Martin has had plenty, and he wrote a real good song about them.
Mr. Martin’s new album, Arts & Leisure, is out now.
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Charles Bradley – Good to Be Back Home / Changes
It’s about time to get re-baptized at the church of Reverend Charles Bradley, people.
His new album is officially three days old, and it’s full of soulful goodness like the two songs below.
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Also, you can now stream Hayes Carll’s new record, Lovers and Leavers, ahead of its release over at RollingStone.com.
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Until next week, cheers….
The Monday Morning Tape 