ALASDAIR ROBERTS
Farewell Sorrow (Drag City)
Reviewed by Holly Day

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I finally figured out why this album was so hard for me to initially get into. It's because it's just so nice and innocent, and honest, and there's no pretense to any of it. After a couple of listens, I got it, and now I absolutely love it. I don't know why something this sweet can seem so alien to me, except that maybe it's because I'm a dirty American and Alasdair Roberts represents some wonderfully naive element of his native Scotland that doesn't translate across borders immediately. I did enjoy the album musically right away, though, swelling with beautifully mellow acoustic folk guitar and backed by accordions, mandolins, and sedate percussion; paired with Alasdair's falsetto, lightly-accented vocals and lyrics about children and wildflowers, this is just about the most unabashedly gentle album I've heard in a long time.

© 2003 - Holly Day