News: Listen to 4 tracks from the upcoming new Cedarwell album "A Stone, A Leaf, A Door." (coming out March 2010)

Cedarwell – A Stone, A Leaf, A Door.
self-released 2010 (March 2010)

[tags: folk, indie pop, indie rock, upcoming album]

Listen while reading:

Burn Up The Sky: Which One (from A Stone, A Leaf, A Door.)

One Man (from A Stone, A Leaf, A Door.)

Who To Blame (from A Stone, A Leaf, A Door.)

Untitled (from A Stone, A Leaf, A Door.)

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I feel honored to present to you the first impressions of Cedarwell’s new album A Stone, A Leaf, A Door. that’s coming out in March 2010; the title is a homage to a novel by Thomas Wolfe. I talked to Erik from the band and he was very easy and nice and so I’m able to let you hear four of the new tracks that will be featured on the upcoming full length. Erik just returned from his HORSES tour in Europe and already has planned to tour Europe again in March 2010 together with band mates Jared on “drums etc.” and Jeff on electronic guitar…and you might have noticed it: it’s the same time the new album comes out and so you’ll be able to purchase it directly from them then.

In one of my first posts here on CFM I wrote about the 2008 release Smoky Mountain Bear by Cedarwell and it was one of the albums that got me started with the whole blogging thing. And now, a couple of months and a good deal of posts, contacts and awesome music later, it’s again Cedarwell that leaves me speechless. They promised, that the new album would sound different -  and they managed to sound fresh by simultaneously keeping their own style. I would describe the music somewhere between Brown Bird, Yo La Tengo and The Low Anthem and you can imagine that the result can’t be far away from just being perfect. If you mix the kind of experimental but roots alt country of Brown Bird’s The Devil Dancing and the harder parts of The Low Anthem’s Oh My God, Charlie Darwin together with some Yo La Tengo indie feeling you might get an idea of how complex the new album will sound.

Burn Up The Sky: Which One is a very soft track concentrating especially on  Erik’s vocals. After the first half the drums kick in and add some indie pop appeal to it – and if you know Smoky Mountain Bear, you know that this is nothing to fear because Cedarwell’s indie pop is as folksy as it could be. Some Fleet Foxes and Mountain Man comparisons come to mind but overall the typical Cedarwell spirit, mostly created by Erik’s expressive voice, defines this track. If you now think you know how the record will sound, you maybe want to give a listen to One Man first, that sort of kicks you in the face with harder indie rock/indie punk electronic guitars adding another dimension to the calm sound of Burn Up The Sky: Which One – and to be honest, I don’t know why, but I have to think of Yo La Tengo at some points (love guitar noise?). I don’t know if this is a good comparison but it clearly shows the indie rock part in Cedarwell’s folksy sound.

As far as I can tell, referring to the four tracks I got, the sound of A Stone, A Leaf, A Door. has to lie somewhere between indie rock, folk, alt country and indie pop.  And a track that focuses more on the folk aspect is Who To Blame with its even more reduced sound than Burn Up The Sky: Which One. And hit me in the face if you like, again I’m reminded of Yo La Tengo, especially of their really quiet songs with this late evening feeling to them, not the indie rock thing. But what is clearly different to Yo La are the occasionally used wind instruments and the use of the banjo. Especially the latter results in the above mentioned alt country sound that distinguishes Cedarwell from being to indie rock pop or whatever.

One track left, simply called Untitled (or simply left untitled?) If you want to have a good overview of how varied the album might will be or you want a track that combines all the above mentioned aspects as good as one track can combine them, you have to listen to Untitled. The six minutes folk pop alt country indie monster displays the greatness that lies in the music and really makes you wanna have the new album. What a great track.

So don’t forget that Cedarwell will tour Europe again in March 2010! If you have a chance to visit one of their concerts, take it! And by doing so, don’t forget to buy your personal copy of the new record A Stone, A Leaf, A Door. (As soon as I have my fingers on all the tracks, I come back with a full album review. In the meantime visit Cedarwell’s MySpace for the latest tour dates and things.)

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