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Goldrush - The Heart Is The Place This release surprised me… a lot. I still can’t quite believe just how it has managed to seduce me so successfully. Described as an alternative folk/country release I was dreading putting Goldrush’s latest release The Heart Is The Place in my player, but what I was met with was truly astonishing. There is indeed an undeniable folk/country sound here, in fact it forms the backbone to the sound. But this sound is then sonically subverted and gracefully waltzes into the twenty first century with the introduction of electronic sounds and effects, along with occasional electric guitar bursts that create a spacey experimental turn, somehow beautifully understated while entirely altering the nature of the sound and making this release a unique and thoroughly enjoyable experience. Tracks like “Every One Of Us” and “Heaven’s My Destination” are prime examples, with the latter an entirely experimental moment in which the band’s immense song writing ability shines brighter than the sun. This supreme song writing is what transforms this album from great to pure brilliance, with songs like “Can’t Give Up The Ghost” endlessly honest and beautifully constructed, with an understated beauty that runs throughout the entire album. The songs are layered but perfectly simple all at once, managing to be graceful and at times chaotic. I definitely feel that this release is at its best in its more sonically adventurous moments, with some more straight country songs offering little to interest the listener – though even when all else is stripped away the band’s great song writing remains. This is a release that will undoubtedly fall slap bang into the indie labelling, with names like Mercury Rev and Granddaddy being thrown around on the press release, but the fact they’ve managed to make a fan out of a punk rock kid like me helps prove that this release defies easy categorisation. It’s a marriage of old and new, as classic folk/country elements meet twenty first century technology, and they get on like a house on fire; albeit a graceful, understated house on fire. dan |
