Brown Bird: The Bottom of the Sea

Brown Bird
The Bottom of the Sea
Peapod
2008-07-01

David Lamb’s Brown Bird has been creating hauntingly sweet Americana folk music since 2001, and his latest full-length lives up to his impressive track record. Lamb is backed by cellist Jerusha Robinson and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Robinson, the husband-wife Robinsons adding mellifluous twang and pomp. Also, vocalist Annie Palmer adds requisite harmonies on selected tracks. The richness of Lamb’s vocals and strumming offers an intimate point of view of the compositions. Lamb is so close to the mic that every vulnerability, if there are any, is multiplied that much more. “Coward” grows in its minute and a half duration, from breathless and unsure to solid and residual. Each brief song moment could almost correspond to different personality facets, just as different rhythms signal different chores in sea shanty folk.

RATING 6 / 10