I should be tired of these records by now – the lo-fi sound, the squeak of the fingers moving on the acoustic guitar, the sighing vocal, maybe some lapsteel – but Bare Bones and Branches snuck right past all of my jaded defenses. What can I say? I’m a sucker for melancholy.
I’m thrilled to see this becoming a crowded field. Blame it on Nick Drake, or maybe Iron and Wine, but suddenly every side project and every Midwestern indie sounds like Rilo Kiley on heavy cold medication.
There’s a hush over Bare Bones and Branches as if the band members were taking care never to drown one another out, and the result is a set of cautious, neatly interlaced songs that build very, very slowly but with total confidence. It’s a trick mastermind Lou Rogai is pulling with each song, coming on like a simple open-hearted man with a guitar, recorded in such a way that I feel he’s sitting right next to me, but then he moves the feeling, abstracts it, and I land in a completely otherwordly place.
They’re lullabies, for the most part, songs to get you through a fragile time. A gift to the self-indulgently depressed or hungover, Bare Bones and Branches is moody and careful, resigned and gorgeous. It’s pop at half speed, or it’s country noir, it’s new folk, or maybe we’re calling it slo-core, I’m not sure, but it’s going to drown us in a sort of delicate, well-read, mellow flood. I think it’s a good way to go.
– Unknown
Lewis & Clarke
(Summersteps)