We may find ourselves at a time when studio technology sees so many bands polishing their music to within an inch of its life, autotuning the humanity out of vocals and voices, adding extraneous sheen and unnecessary shine, but Boston’s Crow Follow is having none of it.
Theirs is a sound built on authenticity—their voices have a wonderfully live quality, guitars chop deftly through the song, the bass and the beats feel raw and kinetic, and even the silky saxophone is laced with just enough grit to sound suberbly sassy rather than merely sleek. It’s the sound of a set of seasoned musicians understanding what an honest voice and an authentic sound are.
They also look slightly to the past for their subject matter, although what they give us is as relevant today as it has ever been. “Fold Like Money” advocates community, neighborly support, and making your voice and presence heard, something we are seeing more and more bands express through their songs in the face of a changing, darkening world.
What they give us here is a wonderfully loose, shamanic, rock ‘n’ soul anthem to activism, to speaking truth to power, and a reminder that not only can even the most unlikely of us do our bit for change, especially when we all come together en masse, but that it is love and togetherness that is the engine room driving such movements. And as such movements pick up momentum, it is songs, soundtracks, anthems such as “Fold Like Money” that will power us on to better days.
