JAMIE BARNES
Honey from the Ribcage (Silber Records)
Reviewed by Holly Day

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I absolutely love the first track, "Second Guess My Own," a quiet, somber-sounding ballad featuring quiet male lead vocals, beautifully reserved female back-up vocals that are layered on at times like an a capella church choir drone. It reminds me a lot of my favorite Low songs vocally, and some of my favorite Will Oldham songs musically, with gorgeously melancholy banjo picking and rhythm guitar making up the bulk of the instruments. Actually, I absolutely love all the songs on this, but this track alone is worth picking up the album, even though there's a whole other nine songs to enjoy as well! I'm not going to give a break-down of every single song on the disc, because if I did, and I did for every single CD that came across my desk, my fingers would be big and fat and meaty from the workout, and I'm not planning on having my wedding ring resized anytime soon. So you'll have to take my word for it - there's some really beautiful stuff here. Jamie Barnes has one of those rare, wonderful singing voices that sounds quite masculine despite being high-pitched, fragile and sweet. The music is just as good as the vocals, too, soft and sparse and near-acoustic and back-woods folky, oh, and the lyrics are all about death and loneliness and falling to pieces somewhere out in the middle of nowhere.

© 2005 - Holly Day