Artist: Dave Burn
Album: Arizona
Bitrate: 223kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: Dave Records
Genre: Folk/Rock
Size: 63.80 megs
PlayTime: 0h 37min 55sec total
Rip Date: 2017-09-15
Store Date: 2017-03-01
Track List:
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01. Fine Company 3:22
02. Wasted 3:46
03. Vans 2:46
04. Born To Do 3:53
05. Litter And The Leaves 3:13
06. Lie On My Breath 3:19
07. Love This Song 3:32
08. We Breath 2:51
09. I'm So Numb 2:19
10. Till I'm Gone 2:31
11. The Killer 3:16
12. Long Lost Son 3:07
Release Notes:
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Formed in 2009, London-based country-folk outfit ahab were touted for big things
but sadly never made the crossing from critical acclaim to commercial success.
After calling it a day, singer Dave Burn went on to form Orphan Colours with
fellow ahab member Steve Llewellyn alongside Fred Abbot from the now defunct
Noah and the Whale, Danny and the Champs drummer Steve Brookes and folk singer
Graham Knight.
Finally, however, heÆs put together a debut solo album, one that reflects the
lengthy periods he spent in America with his grandfather in Arizona (hence, the
album title), but also the folk roots of his homeland. Produced by Abbot,
Arizona features Knight on bass and piano, and Kristen Adamson, Burn senior,
Llewellyn and fellow ex-ahab member Luke Price on harmonies. The album opens
with Fine Company, a circling acoustic guitar pattern backdropping BurnÆs
trad-folk inflected vocals before the drums, and electric guitars kick in for a
punchier rolling rhythm sound that echoes Matthews Southern Comfort, as indeed
does Till IÆm Gone later in the album.
With its mandolin notes and another circling melody line, the second number,
Wasted, particularly recalls The Hooters, the crowd-friendly chorus line
underlining BurnÆs ability to come up with hooks that dig into the mind and
refuse to leave. And, while IÆm dealing the comparison cards, the next track,
Vans, one of those rare songs that look at a musicianÆs life on the road through
shit-tinted glasses, puts me in mind of Justin Rutledge, not a compliment I dish
out readily.
Over the course of the twelve tracks, Burn draws on personal experiences and his
Americana influences to weave a reflective web that embraces both the brushed
drums uptempo Calexico-ish shuffle of Born To Do and the spare acoustic
fingerpicking of the cello stained Litter and the Leaves. A pleading song about
losing love it finds a thematic companion piece in the piano backed striding
rhythm of The Lie On My Breath, a countrified number thatÆll be just as at home
on a festival stage as in some Midwest barroom.
Slow waltzer Love This Song feels like a classic, breezy Clive Gregson number
with the pace taken down while the final stretch also yields the folksier
colours of The Breath, another circling fingerpicked circling motif, here
caressed with Tom HoldenÆs violin. By contrast, IÆm So Numb is a cranked up
swaggering alt-country rocker with a punchy riff. Likewise, The Killer, a
particular standout, offers a moody desert-atmosphere steeped in a stew of blues
and traditional folk, a Southern gothic murder ballad, ripped midway by an
electric guitar maelstrom.
He closes in contemplative mood with the rippling fingerpicked, violin and cello
led melody of Long Lost Son, another number through which the spine of English
folk can be clearly heard as its ends on drum roll, cymbals crash and feedback.
A place marker in the debut albums of the year list has been duly assigned.