The Deep Dark Woods - The Place I Left Behind
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 1:17AM
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)
Reader Comments (1)
Do we mean that our music is being substituted for the freshest water on the planet, because if this is true then I'm going to move to Saskatoon and find out for myself? Because these guys are the best thing going in music right now!