Blake Solomon
08/21/09, 09:15 PM
Her Sweet Autumn Misery – Fire By Night, Smoke By Morning
Record Label: Unsigned
Release Date: Available Now
Does a band name/album title combo get more off-putting than the one-two emo punch of Her Sweet Autumn Misery and Fire By Night, Smoke By Morning? Hurdles are a fact of life, but there’s no reason for this band to make theirs 10-feet tall and covered in spikes. All that being said, this is neither bad nor overwrought with slit wrists depression-isms. HSAM do a jangly type of folk rock that often implements strings and the lilting voice of Chelsea Norman. Think of it as a more Southern version of what Panic At The Disco tried with that drug-fueled mess from last year. Fire By Night toes the waters of pretentiousness without ever getting its hair wet. This is mostly due to Landon Miller’s warbly, The Decemberists-esque vocal delivery. At times he’s too serious to handle, but then he redeems himself by balancing it with carefree elements like horns or whistles. Each moment Her Sweet Autumn Misery start to become what you fear, they catch themselves and wind up with a fairly solid record. Well, except for that name. That’s full-blown terrible.
Ms. Norman will steal your heart if you let her. On fast moving “Birds” and the acoustic duet “Sarah Beth Vernor”, her pitch-perfect lightness plays as a wonderful counterpoint to Miller’s aforementioned vocal unease. Miller does have a strong falsetto, though. In fact, on parts of “Ashes Around The Horses,” he gets so “up there” that you’ll think the duties have switched back over to Norman. And even though they both have their strengths (Miller’s spoken word-ish preaching on “Searching” comes to mind), Fire By Night works because of their mixing, matching and harmonizing. Without the interaction of the two, this would just be another stripped-down record with some guy telling some story about some vague moral. But now it’s a conversation that happens to take place while Ben Densmore’s acoustic guitars are nearby.
So understand that Her Sweet Autumn Misery isn’t exactly a misleading moniker. There’s lamenting, yes, but it’s not so much “woe as me” as it is “woe is us.” I can handle woe is us, because, well, I’m “us.” Call it selfish if you must, but being included in an album is always going to interest me more than your one-sided story about a lost love. But even if there is some boo-hooing, there is also a flair for the cinematic. “Eskimo Water” spends much of its runtime in a back-and-forth duet that rolls slowly by with acoustic guitar. However, it’s outro is electric guitar-fueled and loud. It’s just enough of a difference to make you put the song under the musical microscope a few extra times. This moves into the bluesy jam that is “God Is…” The track's another hodgepodge of styles that works despite its “little bit of this, little bit of that” construction. Clearly Miller has a varied musical taste, but it takes a special ear to know when each style works best. Really, Fire By Night, Smoke By Morning is a diverse musical journey. Songs may stick to their roots of country, folk and blues, but this group of 20-somethings has incorporated the rock music of their day into a pleasing mixture. When spring comes around with all its crazy day-to-day changes, this album will feel more apt than ever.
Recommended If You Like: The Decemberists, acoustic country version of Nightmare of You, black beans, Nickle Creek, green jeans
www.myspace.com/hersweetautumnmisery
Record Label: Unsigned
Release Date: Available Now
Does a band name/album title combo get more off-putting than the one-two emo punch of Her Sweet Autumn Misery and Fire By Night, Smoke By Morning? Hurdles are a fact of life, but there’s no reason for this band to make theirs 10-feet tall and covered in spikes. All that being said, this is neither bad nor overwrought with slit wrists depression-isms. HSAM do a jangly type of folk rock that often implements strings and the lilting voice of Chelsea Norman. Think of it as a more Southern version of what Panic At The Disco tried with that drug-fueled mess from last year. Fire By Night toes the waters of pretentiousness without ever getting its hair wet. This is mostly due to Landon Miller’s warbly, The Decemberists-esque vocal delivery. At times he’s too serious to handle, but then he redeems himself by balancing it with carefree elements like horns or whistles. Each moment Her Sweet Autumn Misery start to become what you fear, they catch themselves and wind up with a fairly solid record. Well, except for that name. That’s full-blown terrible.
Ms. Norman will steal your heart if you let her. On fast moving “Birds” and the acoustic duet “Sarah Beth Vernor”, her pitch-perfect lightness plays as a wonderful counterpoint to Miller’s aforementioned vocal unease. Miller does have a strong falsetto, though. In fact, on parts of “Ashes Around The Horses,” he gets so “up there” that you’ll think the duties have switched back over to Norman. And even though they both have their strengths (Miller’s spoken word-ish preaching on “Searching” comes to mind), Fire By Night works because of their mixing, matching and harmonizing. Without the interaction of the two, this would just be another stripped-down record with some guy telling some story about some vague moral. But now it’s a conversation that happens to take place while Ben Densmore’s acoustic guitars are nearby.
So understand that Her Sweet Autumn Misery isn’t exactly a misleading moniker. There’s lamenting, yes, but it’s not so much “woe as me” as it is “woe is us.” I can handle woe is us, because, well, I’m “us.” Call it selfish if you must, but being included in an album is always going to interest me more than your one-sided story about a lost love. But even if there is some boo-hooing, there is also a flair for the cinematic. “Eskimo Water” spends much of its runtime in a back-and-forth duet that rolls slowly by with acoustic guitar. However, it’s outro is electric guitar-fueled and loud. It’s just enough of a difference to make you put the song under the musical microscope a few extra times. This moves into the bluesy jam that is “God Is…” The track's another hodgepodge of styles that works despite its “little bit of this, little bit of that” construction. Clearly Miller has a varied musical taste, but it takes a special ear to know when each style works best. Really, Fire By Night, Smoke By Morning is a diverse musical journey. Songs may stick to their roots of country, folk and blues, but this group of 20-somethings has incorporated the rock music of their day into a pleasing mixture. When spring comes around with all its crazy day-to-day changes, this album will feel more apt than ever.
Recommended If You Like: The Decemberists, acoustic country version of Nightmare of You, black beans, Nickle Creek, green jeans
www.myspace.com/hersweetautumnmisery