17 Postcards (studio album)
by Ted Barnes

From Mercury 04/19/2021 19:03

(Gorgeous folk album that slowly blossoms the more you listen and the further you get in. The arrangements are pristine and sublime. The vocals are mostly not present, but when they are my god do they shine and cut to the heart of the emotion and soul of the songs they reside within. And the whole album, as a cohesive album, just flows and takes gorgeous side routes and by the time I was done listening I felt a strange peace. Stellar album that blew me away.)

This is a folk album. At times lush and more often quite sparse with its instrumentation. The arrangements are precise and exact and draw your ear in with their beauty. This album is mostly instrumental, but when the vocals do come in they are quite excellently done. The male vocals are world-weary and down, the female vocals are equally down but have a bit more clear-eyed sparkle.

This album wanders, it mills about one place and smells the roses then drifts somewhere else. The great thing I really love about this album, though, is that despite this clear wandering and almost aimless quality, wherever the songs do drift off to the sounds and themes and feelings are always fleshed out and realized. There is a cohesive through line that maintains throughout the course of this delicate, ruminative folk album. And there is a subtle variety of instrumentation here. Usually there are only a few instruments going at once, but with expert economy the instruments shine and emote in their brief moments of being at the forefront. The solos and the big moments all just fit right and naturally and are usually quite breathe-taking.

I honestly kind of love this album. I love how subtle and assured it is, never going overboard while still hitting me hard with almost every artistic choice. This album feels somewhat like a contemplative walk in the woods, a walk which you needed to get your mind off something troubling, a walk that takes you to a whole series of beautiful places and helps you re-contextualize and put into clearer perspective the troubles you may find yourself in. That may not make any sense to anyone but me, but that is indeed what I thought of several times while listening to this album today.