I’m not saying that it is the best way to judge a band, but looking at the songs they choose to cover tells you something about them: the artists they consider peers, the songs they hold dear, the bands they hope to emulate. so to find Nick Cave’s “Jubilee Street” amongst the songs on A Whisper speaks volumes.
Here, we find a lush and understated take, preferring to stay in the realm of the elegant and subtle rather than emulating the slow-burning sonic build of the original. Whereas the original is anthemic, this is quietly majestic.
But one song does not make an album, yet there is something of Prince of Darkness echoing through much of the music here. The opening title song could easily be something that he could have written: a sung-spoken delivery with minimal guitars, a gentle beat, and some subtle sonics, and that is all they need to create magic.
“Bathed in the Light” is suitably sunshine-dappled; “Maybe We’re Flying” is hushed, gentle, and hazy; “8 AM” broods in the morning light, reflective, whistful, troubled; and things end as if with the final paragraph of a book: spoken word, mellifluous cascades of guitars, and the hints of unrequited love in the air, courtesy of “Afternoon Train.”
I may have overplayed the Nick Cave sonic association; there is much more original here than reminiscent. But The Color Forty Nine shares a sense of storytelling and subtly and the ability to find the beautiful in the everyday, as he does, so the least we can say is that if you like one, you will love the other.
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