Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

When you see the cover of "Sigh No More" the first thing that comes to your mind is: Does the world need another Felice Brothers clone?. But is enough to listen "Sigh No More" and "The Cave", the songs that open the album, to immediately change your mind. Practically with an unplugged sound, this British band has the sensitivity to capture, even better than many of their American colleagues, the essence of folk, country and bluegrass (which, considering they coming from the urban-London, is something not to be ignored) to make 12 crafted pieces of clear, intimate and extraordinary warm folk/rock. From emotion, between melancholy and celebratory, of "The Cave" or "Roll Away Your Stone", in which Winston Marshall happily untie his banjo, to the introspection and severity of minor keys in "I Gave You All " or " Thistle And Weeds ", the quartet, beside let us clear that they definitely are not a Felice Brothers clone, give us music as simple as brilliant. A joyful and cordial record. -CORANNIEIT-

Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
Island Records, 2009

Links:
Official Site
My Space Site

Baroness - Blue Record

There are times we want our ears to be drilled without mercy. That's when we listen to heavy artillery from bands like Lamb Of God. But there are times when we want to hear good metal, hard and strong but without risk of permanent hearing damage. That's when a record like "Blue Record," the second album by American band Baroness, enters the picture. This quartet formed in Georgia, included, by the way, in the next Coachella Festival lineup, features 12 hymns, heavies, energetics, theatricals, with hard guitars always galloping (although not necessarily aggressive) and old school melodic solos. Heavy metal, pompous and raw at the same time, which intersects with alternative rock, doom metal and, following the path of bands like Mastodon, touches of progressive metal perhaps with not much complexity but in pieces like "A Horse Called Golgotha" or "War, Wisdom And Rhyme ", with textures, instrumental passages and rhythmic changes, is enough to give another level to their sound while songs like "Jake Leg" or "The Sweetest Curse ", rude and direct, maintains the metal rage in the album. A magnificent metal disk: epic, vital and noisy. -CORANNIEIT-

Baroness, Blue Record
Relapse Records, 2009

Links:
Official Site
My Space Site