Search - Greencards :: Weather & Water

A wonderful recording

C. Wilson | SCAPPOOSE, OR USA | 07/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The recording itself is beautifully mixed.

Each voice and instrument is crystal clear.

A beauty to listen to !



Harmony seems to be a forgotten part of modern music.

This is just a gem.

The voices mesh together like silk and honey.



"

Moody, sad but hopeful bluegrass pop

Eliphas Levi | Baton Rouge, LA USA | 08/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I discovered this band from an NPR/public radio airing last week. I went out and bought the album from hearing "Long Way Down," and I have to say that it's one of the most geniune and sincere acoustic albums I've heard in years. The music itself is wonderful, but the lyrics lend the music an authenticity that is often missing from popular music: the things greencard sing about are what you and I live everyday, not idealized hopeful future-land. The sound and menaing resonate more with the Louvin Brothers and less so with contemporar country/bluegrass faire. It's definately a bluegrass for the alt-country generation, but it also has appeal for the old timers. This is a masterful bluegrass crossover I cannot recommend more highly! Earnest and white, these Aussies have hit the nerve . . . ."

Simply Beautiful Music

Faithless Street | Austin | 01/04/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Greencards have earned their success the hard way. Individually they learned the business playing for other artists such as Rodney Crowell . They actually met and came together as a result of working on a project for another artist. They have build a fan base using the time honored tradition of opening for bands they respected musically. In short, they are a flashback to a time when musicians became successful by making, of all things, music. On their second album they remind new fans and old exactly what kind of music can be wrung of this kind of work. Haunting and memorable, The Greencards may just be the best contemporary straight bluegrass band on the scene today.

The album opens with the haunting tribute to losing a loved one, "The Ghost of You And Me," which features Carol Young's voice to its best advantage. The title track is a chilling ballad, penned by fellow Aussie Jed Hughes, about a man forced by economics into commercial fishing, trapped on a boat in a storm. "Almost Home" is a quick fingered and fast paced instrumental which still maintains the quietly beautiful mood of the album. "Like A Melody" is a warm, pretty love song, featuring Kym Warner on vocals. The albums lead off single "Time" returns to the melancholy vocals of Carol Young, accentuated to perfection by the fiddle and mandolin of Eamon McLoughlin and Kym Warner respectively. "Long Way Down" allows Warner the chance to stretch his vocals into a melancholy and minor keyed song which sums up the album's theme of the vagarities of love and loss. "Marty's Kitchen" is a striking and rousing instant instrumental classic which includes plenty of fiddle and two guitar solos. Next they break into the albums second cover, Patty Griffin's "What You Are," which finds Carol Young singing at her musing and heartbreaking best. In "Don't Want Forever" Young muses prettily "give me a little of you time/I think there's something we could find/I don't want forever/Just give me tonight." This is followed by "The Ballad of Kitty Wells" which features Warner drawing on his adopted Appalachian roots in a tale lust, adultery and murder. "Bordered On A Breakdown" continues the theme of a man brought to the brink of madness by the love of a fickle woman. The album closes with "The House On Vine Street," a quiet and introspective instrumental song.

With Weather and Water The Greencards continue their heritage of understated beauty. While they follow the same general pattern of Allison Krauss and Union Station, they carve their own ground and Carol Young is often a more satisfying vocalist. This combination turned Movin' On into one of the most talked about debut albums in years. Weather and Water brings this talent into focus with a their continual thread of time, love and loss. Between the heart wrenching pluck of Warner's mandolin, the weeping of McLaughlin's fiddle and the melancholy ach of Young's voice, Weather and Water is an album not soon forgotten, even in the current sea of Contemporary Bluegrass albums.



















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