The Hill – Dent
Similar artists: Zach Bryan, Noah Kahan, Bob Dylan, The Jayhawks, Son Volt
Genre: Folk, Americana
Pop music can still offer great relief. But it’s hard to be loyal to it these days. If you spend too much time with you, you end up feeling as if you’re in a theatre in which only contemporary comedies are being staged. Sure, for a while, it’s fun to see the actors pull funny faces or shout their lines at the top of their lungs. But does it wear you out eventually? Isn’t it normal to crave something a bit more consistent?
Truth be told, after so many forced laughs, you almost crave a bit of misery. Good times call for it. You’d have to be a moron or joyously mentally challenged to always live in the gleam of jokes and laughter. So much of it makes you want to search the newspaper for the obituary section or go looking for a truth-telling folk singer.
From the perspective of someone looking for truths not often spoken, The Hill’s “Dent” is a highly entertaining piece. Sure, there’s a deathly resonance to this folk song. But, at least, there are no cosmetics applied to the truth this time. All you get is a singer, an acoustic guitar, and every bit of information that they’ve accumulated, which has been worth holding onto. That’s enough for me.
Krystal Rivvers – Love You I do
Genre: Folk
If you’re anything like most pop music fans, and I sincerely hope that fate has dealt you better cards, you’ve been stuck on a couple of love and break-up albums over the past few days. Those have always been popular, but never more so than today. But do you believe the singers and songwriters who tell you that they loved more than life itself?
After all, once this album cycle is over, they’ll need to be back with a new story. And it’ll be the same as the old story. Face it! Romance sells big. And we cynics need it like we need fresh air. The entertainment industry can’t stop talking about romance because most of us can’t stop asking for it. But what about the relationships we already have?
There aren’t many songs or movies about true friendship, and the ones that exist can’t hit the right pitch. Krystal Rivvers’ drunken ramble of “Love You I do” falls on just the right note. The tune, you’ll quickly realise, is a tune dedicated to friends. But it stays away from great revelations. No, instead, it captures friends declaring how much they care for one another. And, the live performance has a bit of magic to it, something that might’ve never been captured again had the engineer failed to press “record.”
