The Deep Dark Woods - The Place I Left Behind

The Deep Dark Woods - We're not sure just how much hometown Saskatoon, Saskatchewan plays into their sound, but we're guessing that this amiable, unpretentious and quietly disarming "Canadiana" folk/rock is probably in the water up there...2009 album Winter Hours proved a breakthrough, winning awards and receiving major critical praise...confident new self-produced project is layered with experimentation in sound and instrumentation that enriches rather than distracts... // Release: The Place I Left Behind  (US: October 18, Sugar Hill) // Sounds like: scruffy, acoustic-driven songs seem cut from the same stylistic whole cloth of classic outfits like The Band, a traditionalist base updated but never abandoned...dark themes and an overall tone of melancholy don't weigh on the music -- they simply serve as inspiration to the murder ballads, prairie laments and earthy roots rock hymns...

Quote: "Nowadays you don't hear a lot of emotion in people's vocals anymore and like Waylon and Bob Dylan, good grief! Those guys can really weep it out, you know what I mean? So I like people who can make you hurt just by their singing."- Ryan Boldt of DDW // What we like: lead single "West Side Street" is a timeless, roots neo-classic, starkly produced and spacious with ringing guitars, Garth Hudson-styled organ fills and shambling harmonied charm...their version of Bruce Springsteen's "Factory" is just about everything you hoped it might be: honest, true and deeply affecting, respectful of the original but with their own personal stamp..."The Banks of the Leopold Canal" has become one of our favorite songs of the year, a stunning, richly adorned track that sounds like a Big Pink outtake...

The Deep Dark Woods - "The Banks of the Leopold Canal" (from The Place I Left Behind)

The Deep Dark Woods - "Back Alley Blues" (from The Place I Left Behind)