Download: Big Harp, ‘You Can’t Save ’Em All’
Kevin Bronson on
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Big Harp’s second album does not sound like Big Harp’s first album. Which is understandable, considering the husband-wife duo of Chris Senseney and Stefanie Drootin-Senseney created 2011’s “White Hat” during the quiet times after their kids had been put to bed, without having played a live show. The couple found that the piquant folk music on that first record became a different beast live, which informed the direction their sophomore album took. “Chain Letters” (out next week via Saddle Creek) is more dirty blues than spit-shined folk, Chris’ blistering baritone cutting through scuzzy guitar-and-bass to deliver Big Harp’s shadowy vignettes. If the 2-minute “Some People Are Born Strange” doesn’t overheat you, then songs like “Good News” and “Call Out the Cavalry, Strike Up the Band” will give you fever. Says Chris: “Really I’d like it to sound like Leonard Cohen fronting the Pixies. It doesn’t though.” There’s always Album 3.
||| Download: “You Can’t Save ’Em All” (via RollingStone.com)
||| Also: Stream the whole album at the Onion’s AV Club.
||| Previously: “Everybody Pays”
||| Live: Big Harp plays an in-store at Origami Vinyl on Tuesday, the day of the album’s release. They also play Jan. 25 at the Hotel Cafe at Feb. 6 at the Bootleg Theatre.
[…] Previously: “You Can’t Save ’Em All,” “Everybody […]