Isbells

May
24
posted by tommy


Isbells is definitely angling for a Bon Iver-esque mythology. Their artist bio reads as follows,

After 15 years of playing, making and recording music with several rockbands (Soon, Ellroy,…) Gaëtan Vandewoude felt the time was right to start creating his very own songs. Mostly writing & recording during nighttime, in a shabby old stable, this resulted in a collection of introspective yet observing songs, inspired by his immediate surroundings. Somewhere in that proces a band was formed with Naima Joris, Bart Borremans and Gianni Marzo, allowing each one of them to give their own colour & contribution to the music. Zeal records came to notice Isbells and got them on board. So, Isbells now presents their debut album. We hope you will enjoy our music

What made Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago such a celebrated record was Justin Vernon’s extended period of isolation in a rural setting. Did Isbells really write and record the album in a stable? Probably not, but I’m going to pretend that they did.
The songs are very simple. A few layered harmonies, some acoustic guitar and you’ve got any song on the album. Maybe some hand drums. I really like it.

Listen to a track from Isbell’s self titled debut album and let me know if you’re won over as I am.

Isbells – Reunite

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Isbells on Myspace
Buy the album on on Emusic
Buy the album on itunes




Have your say:

4 Comments
  1. 26/05/2010

    hey! i got this album a couple of days ago. i am definitely as won over as you are. i just saw you going nuts on them on last.fm and sauntered over here to see if they'd got a review as well. what a win for the music world. i am currently also loving a.a.bondy and edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros, both you may like. x

  2. 01/06/2010

    were you writing this whilst at work Mr Faith? sprung :)

  3. [...] posted by tommy I don’t feel as strongly about No Light Bright Light as I did about the self titled debut that Isbells released last year. His voice and the acoustic accompaniment is starting to sound a little bit too close to Jason Mraz [...]

  4. [...] of Belgian folk heaven. It came with a cliched, Bon Iver-esque, pastoral fairytale behind it which I take no stock in, but more importantly it was earnest, simple European folk. Sometime in the last few months they [...]