May is New Zealand Music Month! For the rest of May, Jamie will review NZ bands, attend (and subsequently write about) NZ shows, and generally give attention to some of the greatest bands you've never heard of.
I realised while writing this review that the New Zealand albums I've chosen to patronise are a little on the sanguine side, so far. Perhaps it's the Autumn chills creeping between my sleeves, but this review is going to follow the set pattern. Haints of Dean Hall play mellow, but troubled, acoustic melodies. Very fitting for anyone wishing to light a few candles, cut the power, and hide under a blanket as a gale howls through the gaps.
The title 'Haints'--a term borrowed from Southern American vernacular meaning 'haunt'--befits this trans-tasman, alt-country duo, as Kathryn McCool (vocals, guitar) and Stephen Reay (guitar) dub themselves. However, I have no idea where Dean Hall is. If it's as haunted as a few of their tracks, however, I don't think I want to know.
Beneath many tracks there seems to lurk a disturbing history. Kathryn sings in soft, sometimes self-limiting notes--they almost comfort the listener. But her broken tones betray a darker plot, such as in Wait Till Your Father Gets Home. In this song, the listener knows neither what has happened, nor what will happen, yet the slim details given are enough to dredge feelings of guilt long suppressed. Listening to the album, I can't help but feel like I an trying to call up an old memory--one that resists, one that perhaps wasn't real to begin with. In fact, the eerie harmonics achieved between Kathryn's vocals and Stephen's acoustic picking are themselves like recollections--lovers' half-remembered faces: images to which we cling, but which inevitably distort, congeal, and blend into a light wholly unrecognizable. The Haints of Dean Hall write songs as chilling and unstoppable as the wind.
Band :: Haints of Dean Hall
Album :: The Haints of Dean Hall
Verdict :: Recommend for the haunted and unhaunted alike
Song :: Actually, We Don't Talk About It
Note: All download links to mp3s posted on D&C have been disabled. You may listen, but you may not have.
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