It's our favourite track off the sublime Dry The River debut (which we reviewed here) and we love this canine-themed cover art, definitely one the band's more darkly ersatz moments and wonderfully at odds with the up-beat anthemicness of the track itself.
British folk music – the great ambassador of a nation these days courtesy of bands like Mumford & Sons. Ever since Dry The River began making tentative movements within the industry, people were quick to liken them with Mumford – and while it’s true they bear much in common, Dry The River offer a far richer palate of sounds, deftly coupled with a keen knowledge of great pop hooks. Their tracks feel looser, freer, and more spacious. It’s like the gates to England’s green pastures have been opened wide and the band given liberty to sow and reap their sustenance.
And what wonders they have grown. As an album, Shallow Bed is the richest of broths, a hearty concoction of good honest songwriting, guitar lines that shine out like the brightest of stars and string sections that swell and rise like the pulse of a living body. If that body be England’s own spirit, then Dry The River are the coursing sweep of its energies leaping out to all corners of its dimensions, and in the tapestry of material presented on the band’s debut, it welcomes all to its fold.
You don’t get pop more sweetly rounded than the likes of History Book and New Ceremony (two of the best tracks on the album) – all sugared harmonies and arts-n’-crafts jaunty cheer. They’re the kind of songs to lay out full-pelt come the Jubilee, long tables strewn down the road and people gathered round to share in lovely old fashioned companionship. Bible Belt is equally charming, beautiful too – a lover’s ballad of uncomplicated romance and emotion. Dry The River’s music goes beyond twee upkeepings of appearance and quaint gifts, it’s the stuff at the heart of what love really is – that gut feeling that sweeps you up in its arms and tugs you down a path you can’t resist.
Lead single The Chambers & The Valves plays like the band’s calling card – a neatly composed three minute presentation of everything the rest of the album then goes on to explore. The almost tortured cries of ‘I loved you in the best way possible’ on No Rest function to similar effect, a heart-wrenching swipe at our feelings, and we’re thrown head-first into a love story we can all engage with. Big, rough-handed percussion give the songs an earthiness, and those everyman vocals that seem like more than just a singular individual, but instead an amassed collective of spirited yearning.
Yearning for what? For life. The essence of life itself. And a profusely natural, organic depiction of life at that. The lush minimalism of Demons is Dry The River at their most pastoral – a word that seems inescapable when summarising what the band’s sound encompasses, but the only one that really does it full justice. The track, like so many of Dry The River’s best moments, builds from small, village-like beginnings to an impassioned, forceful crescendo that breaks over the soul like a wash of birds’ beating wings. There’s a feathered elegance to Dry The River’s message, a moral capacity for empathy that strikes across all audiences – varied enough to appease the indie crowd, but with the precision and composure to sweeten the tooth of the pop lover.
The piano balladry of Family moves on to emphasise the values of home. Timeless, enduring concepts. There’s moments when every part of the band’s sound comes to bear – guitar, strings, brass, vocals – all slamming home at once. You’re knocked to your knees, not in submission – for Shallow Bed is never overpowering – but in the awe of raw adulation. In its near seven-minute glory, Lion’s Den is the apotheosis of this side to the band – a grandiose epic of truly baroque scales. The soaring guitar solos that underpin its sprawling outro are the stuff heaven is stitched from.
It takes skill to craft a good album, but it takes craftsmanship of artisan-like levels to go beyond that and create a debut record worthy of proper, acknowledging respect. Shallow Bed is one such album.
Weird halloween outfits, bus-stops, corner shops... all thrown into the blender. There's something quintessentially 'Of England' about the video for Dry The River's The Chambers & The Valves, much as their beautifully pastoral music also seems so much a summary of this country's varied landscapes.
Next time we do the washing up, we're totally rocking out the bright red Devil outfit too. Anyone got one going spare?
Dry The River's debut album Shallow Bed is released on the 5th March.
For the past month or so, there's been one CD that's been back on my stereo again and again - the Dry The River album sampler. I'd be the first to admit I'm not always the biggest fan of guitar bands, and hold a particular dislike for Mumford & Sons (or what they stand for at any rate) - who Dry The River have been compared to on numerous occasions.
But for me, Dry The River excel on every level that Mumford don't. Where Mumford so often idle in a stale landscape of landed gentrification and overwraught, treacle-like songs, Dry The River feel infinitely more vital - a more engaged, energetic band to hold the banner aloft in the new year.
With the weight of the prestigious BBC Sound of 2012 now resting on their shoulders, all eyes are set on the band and their forthcoming album Shallow Bed to see if they can measure up to the hype. And in tracks like album standout New Ceremony, they match every expectation and then go some way further.
From those fuzzy guitar hooks that cuddle the opening bars of Peter's Liddles almost lullaby-like vocals right through to the starry-night barn dance string sections, New Ceremony comes on filmic in its scale and bursting with a passion far larger than the band itself.
It's the chorus where the song shines at its most intense though - like another of the album's best moments, No Rest - one of Dry The River's greatest qualities is their ability to leap from one tempo to another mid-track in a sprawling feat of musical athleticism that sweeps the listener along in a dash of emotions and blurry adoration.
It's as if the song is a sole boat caught amidst the stormiest of seas, teetering on the brink of a mile-high wave - caught on that cusp of peril and adventurous dering'do - before plummeting head on into the unknown. The result is profoundly exhilarating, a bracing wash of shivvering musical pleasure.
I've long lamented the current lack of guitar bands able to write a decent pop hook, but Dry The River certainly have landed on the knack, with New Ceremony as the jewel in the album's crown. That chorus is the kind of pure, refined brilliance even the great Gary Barlow would be proud to call his own.
Soaring above the spires of towns and down across the plains, roads and railways of the land, it floats on and on - a rallying call to arms. And one, when Shallow Bed is released in March, will be answered in its droves.
Talk about smoke and mirrors... Now, we love a good profile shot of a band, and exciting new up and comers Dry The River have gone to some lengths to ensure this shot is suitably wreathed in clouds of billowing white smog.
But for a band that here shroud themselves in swirling masses of air, their music is contrastingly open and bared-open; the folksy musings of a group that are eager to spill their lyrics and melodies out to the listening masses.
Leaping from the springboard of a prestigious BBC Sound of 2012 shortlist nomination, the band have just announced a host of tour dates - not to be missed!
JANUARY
23 - London - XOYO [SOLD OUT]
FEBRUARY
08 - Manchester - Ritz [XFM & HMV New Music Award Night]
2012, and something exciting is spilling forth from London's East End. No, not just the Olympics, but Dry The River, arguably one of the most promising new UK bands to spring up from the capitals run of indie nights - for them, 2012 is the year they stand as part of the prestigious BBC Sound Of... list.
It's an accolade they can wear with pride - the five-piece's tunes are steeped in lush, sumptuous harmonies, basking in idyllic soundscapes of promise and hope that make forthcoming debut album Shallow Bed seem even more tantalisingly distant - it's not released until March.
Recent single Weights & Measures is precisely the kind of big, folky soup of loveliness that seems to be all the rage at the moment, blending the best of Mumford & Sons' epic chorus overtones with the darker, more moody elements of Fleet Floxes.
It's a hearty broth, the sort of warming, wholesome stuff that feels perfect for the winter months. As 2011 ticks over into 2012, three singles releases and a UK-wide tour behind them, now more than ever seems to be their moment to shine.
New single The Chambers & The Valves is without a doubt their strongest effort to date - vibrant and uplifting, it lilts towards an inspiring new upbeat angle, ripe with halcyon sunshine-spilled guitar licks. Dry The River have always sounded like an organic band, one at one with their surroundings and the feyness of the world - but here, they appear positively steeped in the essence of the effervescence of the countryside.
With the weight of the BBC Sound of 2012 longlist nomination behind them, that tumbling babbling brook is growing stronger - no mere stream anymore, Dry The River now run at full flow.
The Chambers & The Valves is released on the 27th February, followed by the album Shallow Bed on the 5th March.
There's been a lot of buzz surrounding Dry The River of late. Fans of the likes of Fleet Foxes and Noah & The Whale will love their folky, delicate charm - a real rapturous collection of softness and melody sewn together with proper tenderness.
Previous single Deadheads with a beautiful, languid ballad of emotions writ large in lush swathes of guitar and piano. From hushed beginnings it erupted into a sprawling, passionate creature that seemed to be bursting to be let loose on the summer festivals.
And it's there you'll find tha band as they take to Glastonbury this weekend, including a Saturday set on the esteemed John Peel stage.
New track No Rest follows much the same lines as Deadheads; again fuelled on a formula of incredibly fragile openings slowly building into a far more complex creation. What really strikes me most is the way lead singer Peter Liddle's voice can, at a moment, suddenly transform into this fully fledged soaring eagle of a thing as he cries 'I loved you in the best way possible', emploring the recipient of the song's message to just listen, to understand.
It's powerful stuff, and quite rightly, has been driving up much praise for the band from the likes of the NME. These guys are definitely ones to keep an eye out for.
