It’s not TOO too often that I just hear a song on the radio and fixate on a band like I’ve done with these guys. My local public radio station was giving away a few of these CDs as thank you gifts for the pledge drive and played a song or two as enticements and I remember thinking, crap, too bad I pledged already, this would be way cooler than a tote bag…

Then, fatefully, I thought hey, iTunes.

A day or two later (I’m still on dial-up) and it’s funny but I no longer know which songs they played on the radio that morning! I love them all and can’t stop playing them… skip past songs I’ve loved deeply all my life on the old Shuffle while I’m out and about chasing a Fleet fix.

The harmonies, the lovely, simple arrangements, the spare and elegant poetry of the lyrics, I like it all. They could fit in easily onto the soundtrack for “O Brother Where Art Thou” in that at times they have a very southern-hymn sound and at other times I think my mother, a 60s folkie of the first water, needs to hear them, too.

even though they sound a lot like earlyish my morning jacket, and i mean a LOT, this is still a really good album, and should be regarded on its own. some absolutely charming songs on here, thatll stick with you for days.