Vetiver - Thing Of The Past (2008) - Sent by Mannny
I wasn't really sure what to make of this at first. I have always been a bit picky when it comes to folk music and a lot of it doesn't really appeal to me , the last thing I wanted to hear was some acoustic singer songwriter album as 99.9% of this genre bores me to tears.
Whilst unzipping the album I did a double take. Did I really just see Hawkwind's Hurry On Sundown flash past just then.
It turns out it was , and after a bit of research discover that the whole album is made up of cover versions. Although only the Hawkwind cover was a song I had heard before. So naturally I skip straight to that song. And it's wonderful. Totally faithful to the original but with a bigger sound that really works. If I have one minor criticism of it I would have liked the vocals to be a bit stronger. In the original the vocals are buried in the mix but they're still quite clear. I just felt in this version they just seemed a bit too buried and a bit too subdued.
Now all I want to know from Mannny was if he sent me this becuase of that song or was it just a coincidence.
I don't know who performed the rest of the originals on the album and I didn't want to find out just so that I could take each song on it's own merits. I also liked the albums opening track 'Houses' which is just oozing in laid back Exile On Main Street style swagger. The next couple of songs are straight up country ,which while not exactly blowing me away still managed to hold my interest.
The only part of the album I had trouble with was with the 3 slower songs in the middle of the album. I would have liked something a bit more uptempo to pick things up a bit but eventually things do just that with Hurry On Sundown & The Swimming Song. Then we get some more bluesy stuff with 'Blue Driver' & 'Standin' but then after that sadly the band end the album on one of my biggest pet hates ... a long slow ballad. I just cannot stand when bands put a song such as this as the final song. I want to be blown out of the water by the last song to make me go listen to the album again , not want the song to end because i'm getting bored.
I find for me I need time to like slower songs and they need to grow on me and as a first listen they didn't really do a lot for me. But having said that there wasn't a track on this album I openly disliked. At best this album has plenty of balls & swagger to it , at worst it's background music. In that sense to me this album is a perfect Sunday morning album.
I can't see me singing the praises of this band or rushing to find other stuff by them but I could easily see me coming back to this album in the future.
Rating 6.5/10