Feb

23

The Brave and the Bold

Posted by Administrator

February 23, 2006 |

The Brave and the Bold
One of the biggest successful marriages of last year was the collaboration between Iron and Wine and Calexico. This year early on we find another collab with big potential in Tortoise and Bonnie Prince Billy. What might seem again like an unlikely meld, these two have taken on the project they have named, The Brave and the Bold. Bonnie Prince Billy, also know to common folk as Will Olham has recorded a string of successful collaborations with various artists, the most recent being the pairing with Matt Sweeny on the Superwolf album. So the combo work with the multi-genre versatile Band Tortoise was not uncharted territory for him altogether.

The first songs on the disc worth attention are the covers of Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road and Elton Johns Daniel. And actually, the whole album is made up of cover songs, though those two are the most recognizable. The take on Thunder Road is particularly impressive in that Oldham manages to quickly make the song his own while not sacrificing the elements that made it great for the boss when Born to Run was topping the charts. The cover of Daniel also jumps off the page in its distortion engrained sound lets you know quickly that Tortoise is now driving.

And throughout the album there is an eclectic group of cover songs to choose from. Whether it’s the Brazilian Portuguese of Cravo E Canela where Oldham shows some incredible versatility, to the interesting take on Devos “That’s Pep” where Tortoise again shines. In summary, if you buy this album for the Boss and Elton covers alone you should not be disappointed, but that is really just where the disc starts to shine, so dig in and let this one play straight through, and decide for yourself if this is a match made in indie rock heaven.

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