Quantcast
Music
cover art

The Dry Spells

Too Soon For Flowers

(Antenna Farm; US: 11 Aug 2009; UK: 11 Aug 2009)

At times, listening to the Dry Spells’ Too Soon For Flowers, it feels overly simplistic and reductive to refer to tracks like “Sruti” and “Black Is the Color” as songs, when the word “composition” sounds more appropriate. Maybe it’s the ubiquitous, classical sounding harmonies of Tahlia Harbour and April Hayley that make the Dry Spells’ work a bit more formally dramatic than that of others playing in the same sandbox, but the band takes folk and rock influences and weaves them into mystic, heady tapestries worthy of such Californian forebears as Fleetwood Mac (whose “Rhiannon” is covered here as the album’s finale). At times, the lengthy pieces feels like they’re stretching themselves a bit beyond the band’s abilities, but that kind of ambition ain’t a bad thing at all, and will no doubt serve the Dry Spells well further down the trail.

Rating:

Michael Metivier has lived and worked everywhere from New Orleans to Chicago to New York to Boston. He currently lives in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, with his bride-to-be and two hilarious guinea pigs. He records and performs original songs under the name "Oweihops".


Media
Related Articles
25 Jan 2010
Bay Area folk-rockers the Dry Spells talk with PopMatters about side projects, Fleetwood Mac and how they managed to be influenced by both Laurel Canyon and traditional Arabic music.
Comments
Now on PopMatters
  1. 'Nebraska': Bruce Springsteen's 'Heart of Darkness' (Columns)
  2. The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader)
  3. Not-So-Central Casting: Kevin Smith and the Birth of the Reality Podcast (Features)
  4. The 10 Greatest Movie Spies Ever (Short Ends and Leader)
  5. Bored This Way: The 54th Annual Grammy Awards (Features)
  6. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 2: From the Go! Team to the Phoenix Foundation (Features)
  7. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 3: From Real Estate to Youth Lagoon (Features)
  8. Lana Del Rey: Born to Die (Reviews)
  9. The Top 15 Madonna Singles of All Time (Sound Affects)
  10. Google and the Production of Curiosity (Marginal Utility)
  11. Carole E. Barrowman’s Authorial Journey to Hollow Earth (Features)
  12. Van Halen: A Different Kind of Truth (Reviews)
  13. “Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity (Features)
  14. Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt (Columns)
  15. Black Bananas: Rad Times Xpress IV (Reviews)
  16. Paul McCartney: Kisses on the Bottom (Reviews)
  17. The Gay Ole Countryside (Columns)
  18. Of Montreal: Paralytic Stalks (Reviews)
  19. Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro: A Rock Star’s Midlife Crisis or Valid Literature? (Features)
  20. Rating the Performances at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards (Mixed Media)
  21. Counterbalance No. 67: John Coltrane’s 'A Love Supreme' (Sound Affects)
  22. A Look to the Past, An Insight Into the Present: The Use of Gender in 'Mad Men' (Features)
  23. The 10 Best John Coltrane Solos (Sound Affects)
  24. A Tale of How Great Journalism Became Revisionist History: Grambling State U Football (Columns)
  25. Chairlift: Something (Reviews)
  26. Mark Lanegan Band: Blues Funeral (Reviews)
  27. Your Anti-Valentine's Day Playlist. (Mixed Media)
  28. Mitt Romney Can Reside at Today's Proverbial 'Downton Abbey'... Newt Gingrich Cannot (Features)
  29. After Cease to Exist: The Far-from-Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (Features)
  30. Die Antwoord: Ten$ion (Reviews)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.