GIRLYMAN – SUPERNOVA
2012 – Girlyman Inc.
3.5***
At times this album has the mellow sound and feel of a band such as 1980s and 90s indie pop band Everything But The Girl. Fortunately it doesn’t take long for that feeling to subside when you realize that there is a lot more musical substance and songwriting quality to this excellent modern American folksy band. Although they do at times stray perilously close to a little blandness, they seem to pull back in time with the excellence of the songs and strong, thoughtful instrumentation. This is the bands sixth album in nine years and the original trio has now been supplemented by the excellent drumming of former Po’ Girl, J.J. Jones, who was added to the lineup in 2009. The three original members are Doris Muramatsu on vocals, acoustic guitar, mandolin and banjo, with Nate Borofsky also on vocals plus baritone guitar and bass guitar whilst Tylan Greenstein being the third lead vocalist as well as playing guitar, mandolin and percussion. It was only two years ago that Muramatsu was diagnosed with leukaemia and the band was in danger of folding but happily she is now in remission and they are going from strength to strength.
The three vocalists share song writing credits fairly evenly as individuals and several co writes. One of the great band strengths, possibly the greatest, is their lead vocals and harmonies, with all three obviously confident in their solo and combined abilities, as they most certainly should be. There are very few bands that contain a woman and two men where the vocals are this strong and the production and instrumentation recognizes that fact, allowing the vocals plenty of space and whilst the instrumentation is not particularly sparse, the sounds never get in the way. When you ally these abilities to the generally strong songwriting it pushes this band into the upper echelons of a difficult to define genre that could easily be termed quality ‘folk pop.’ The ‘pop’ word could put many off, but it shouldn’t as they are not really a country or rock band and whilst they are deeply into folk music there is a feeling of the edges being smoothed off in much the same way as a lot of poular music, but this doesn’t detract from the quality and quite a fair degree of originality in a‘genre’ where originality is not easy to find. Much of what makes the band unusual is the fact that because the vocals are so strong the lead seems able to change from one to the other in the course of just a chorus, or so it seems!
In the main the songs seem to have strong reflective elements with a slightly less strong, but definable, optimistic tone, probably in part due to the already mentioned illness suffered by Muramatsu. This attitude is immediately apparent on the opening song Nothing Left, on which bad news is received, followed by heart searching and then a little optimism creeps in on this Borofsky penned and sung story with Muramatsu’s lovely harmonies on the chorus. Caroline would seem just a nice love ballad in other hands but Muramatu’s lead vocals and the tremendous male harmonies that rise and fall and seem to change pitch, along with the plaintiff tones of the mandolin give the song a real lift. See to see is full of dramatic sounds with the constantly plucked banjo driving
the song along with Muramatsu on lead vocals and the men contributing harmonies. It would be easy to imagine album closer Best I Could being played on the front porch of a shack in the high Appalachians with it’s repetitive beat, banjo and fiddle leading Muramatsu’s vocals and male harmonies that in all probability could not be matched in that suggested environment!
If you like American folk music with some of the rough edges slightly smoothed off you should buy this and will probably feel it defines the genre! A really good album, yet another one that improves with each subsequent
listen.
http://girlyman.com
3.5***
At times this album has the mellow sound and feel of a band such as 1980s and 90s indie pop band Everything But The Girl. Fortunately it doesn’t take long for that feeling to subside when you realize that there is a lot more musical substance and songwriting quality to this excellent modern American folksy band. Although they do at times stray perilously close to a little blandness, they seem to pull back in time with the excellence of the songs and strong, thoughtful instrumentation. This is the bands sixth album in nine years and the original trio has now been supplemented by the excellent drumming of former Po’ Girl, J.J. Jones, who was added to the lineup in 2009. The three original members are Doris Muramatsu on vocals, acoustic guitar, mandolin and banjo, with Nate Borofsky also on vocals plus baritone guitar and bass guitar whilst Tylan Greenstein being the third lead vocalist as well as playing guitar, mandolin and percussion. It was only two years ago that Muramatsu was diagnosed with leukaemia and the band was in danger of folding but happily she is now in remission and they are going from strength to strength.
The three vocalists share song writing credits fairly evenly as individuals and several co writes. One of the great band strengths, possibly the greatest, is their lead vocals and harmonies, with all three obviously confident in their solo and combined abilities, as they most certainly should be. There are very few bands that contain a woman and two men where the vocals are this strong and the production and instrumentation recognizes that fact, allowing the vocals plenty of space and whilst the instrumentation is not particularly sparse, the sounds never get in the way. When you ally these abilities to the generally strong songwriting it pushes this band into the upper echelons of a difficult to define genre that could easily be termed quality ‘folk pop.’ The ‘pop’ word could put many off, but it shouldn’t as they are not really a country or rock band and whilst they are deeply into folk music there is a feeling of the edges being smoothed off in much the same way as a lot of poular music, but this doesn’t detract from the quality and quite a fair degree of originality in a‘genre’ where originality is not easy to find. Much of what makes the band unusual is the fact that because the vocals are so strong the lead seems able to change from one to the other in the course of just a chorus, or so it seems!
In the main the songs seem to have strong reflective elements with a slightly less strong, but definable, optimistic tone, probably in part due to the already mentioned illness suffered by Muramatsu. This attitude is immediately apparent on the opening song Nothing Left, on which bad news is received, followed by heart searching and then a little optimism creeps in on this Borofsky penned and sung story with Muramatsu’s lovely harmonies on the chorus. Caroline would seem just a nice love ballad in other hands but Muramatu’s lead vocals and the tremendous male harmonies that rise and fall and seem to change pitch, along with the plaintiff tones of the mandolin give the song a real lift. See to see is full of dramatic sounds with the constantly plucked banjo driving
the song along with Muramatsu on lead vocals and the men contributing harmonies. It would be easy to imagine album closer Best I Could being played on the front porch of a shack in the high Appalachians with it’s repetitive beat, banjo and fiddle leading Muramatsu’s vocals and male harmonies that in all probability could not be matched in that suggested environment!
If you like American folk music with some of the rough edges slightly smoothed off you should buy this and will probably feel it defines the genre! A really good album, yet another one that improves with each subsequent
listen.
http://girlyman.com