| CD REVIEW The Treehouse |
 |
|
Band : The Treehouse This Lincoln based British quintet may be rather young, but they're already making waves in their country's Alternative Folk scene. Formed in Autumn last year following a long standing friendship between lead singer Anna Bennett and singer/ guitarist Markus Coulson, the pair started writing songs together with a focus on catchy Folky melodies and vocal harmonies. Bassist/ backing singer Kevin Ashworth was the first to join the duo, responding to an advert found in local press in December, and drummer Josh Baggaley apparently joined from a previous musical endeavour. Completing the line-up was keyboardist/ backing singer Beth Palumbo, adding her vocals to the whole. The band started to play gigs throughout the East Midlands area in early 2010 (playing also at the rather popular Lincoln Beer Festival), and have already appeared on BBC Lincolnshire's show Introducing...and along the way found their audiences wanting for a tangible way to take their music home for replay in more intimate environments. So, in May of last, the band secluded itself with producer Maurice Mulligan at their hometown's BrickBeat Studiosto record the 5 songs on this EP, which they then made available through iTunes and Amazon from early July on. According to the bio we got delivered with our promo download, the material comes strongly recommenced to fans of Damien Rice, Fleetwood Mac, and Kate Bush. And although I never heard any music by the first, I personally find the latter two comparisons are somewhat grasped too high. I mean, sure, there's beautifully harmonic vocals (with varying combinatons: male/ female duet, female/ male-female backings, even male/ male backing passages…but they're far from a Kate Bush, and somehow Bennett doesn't quite cut it to be compared to Stevie Nicks either – in fact, there's moments inn the EP's opening song “Not A Home” when I wish I was somewhere else) and the soft musical accompaniment puts the band in a different category as well! My personal favourite song is the somewhat longer (6:13) closer “What's up Now?” with its Progressive elements (now here is where comparisons to Fleetwood Mac dó have a ringing of truth to 'em!). Check out some of their songs (some as samples only, but there's also full-length songs, and a video nót on the EP) at myspace.com/buildthetreehouse. At the moment the band has several gigs planned in their own county (with a gig in London on Dec. 16 as the exception), so maybe they need some broader attention in order to be persuaded to step out of their comfort zone into the rest of the world? Nice stuff, in spite of my comment on the opening song! 81/100 Tony. |