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Review: 'Spain'
'Carolina'   

-  Album: 'Carolina' -  Label: 'Glitterhouse Records'
-  Genre: 'Alt/Country' -  Release Date: '3rd June 2016'

Our Rating:
Low may be one of the most renowned exponents of slowcore, but Spain, formed the same year (1993) can equally claim to be at the forefront of the rather vague movement. Spain had the good fortune to pen a killer tune early in their career: ‘Spiritual’, from their 1995 debit album, has been covered by a host of artists including Johnny Cash, Soulsavers, Sean Wheeler & Zander Schloss, and by the father of mainstay Josh Haden, (jazz performer Charlie Haden), who performed an instrumental version with Pat Metheny on their album ‘Beyond The Missouri Sky (Short Stories).’

‘Carolina’ is the sixth Spain album, with Josh performing much of the instrumental work. He’s joined by Kenny Lyon (who also produced engineered and mixed the album) on acoustic and electric guitars, lap steel, pedal steel, banjo, keyboards, piano, and a handful of guest musicians including his sister Petra Haden on violin and vocals, and Danny Frankel (K.D. Lang, Lou Reed).

The album’s first track, ‘Tennessee’ radiates an oozing bleakness. The rest of the album follows suite. It’s a finely crafted set of low-key, low-tempo Americana forged from the most barren of psychic landscapes. It’s the soundtrack to a desert, literal, metaphorical and psychological.

Haden displays the ability to adopt one of those definitively country voices: just the right level of grit to give his delivery a depth, gravitas, a capacity to convey experience. The end product is a quality album. It’s not uplifting, it’s not fun, but it’s very good indeed.

Spain Online

  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Spain - Carolina