Strings & Things – The Unsolicited Dance (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24bit/48kHz | Time – 48:09 minutes | 593 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © AMG – SNY
The Unsolicited Dance is the second original installment by Strings & Things. Recorded during their residency in Orlando, Florida. The band spend their free time. perfecting the album to the best of there abilities.
This is the follow-up to the Tipperary/Galway quartet Strings & Things’ 2017 debut Turbulence. It’s a further example of a band taking Irish folk-trad into the modern era with an impressive bunch of original songs and tunes to match their visionary musical approach. While informed by the past, their work gains in relevance and clout by being rooted in the present.
Sean Mongey’s banjo is fingerpickin’ good leading the instrumental opener ‘Fuaim Gathering’, named to honour the 2017 festival cancelled because of the Unsolicited Dance act, hence the album title too. It picks up the pace and rattles and hums to its merry conclusion. The sprightly ‘Jigtime’ has singer James O’Meara Ryan dominating a folksy tune with the ensemble chasing him at full pelt, but ‘My Dreams Are Not Enough’ takes it easy and slow for an emotion-laden song about lost love.
‘Anywhere But Down’ marries the exuberance of fifties rock’n’roll with a thrash-folk style so infectious you might need a jab after it, and Ryan’s neat guitar stylings on ‘Filter’ handsomely flesh out a song about a man living without a filter. Along the way you’ll find a jolly playfulness in the ‘Pedantic Platypus’ with attractive interaction between guitar and banjo.
Tracklist:
1. Strings & Things – Fuaim Gathering
2. Strings & Things – Jigtime
3. Strings & Things – The Unsolicited Dance
4. Strings & Things – My Dreams Are Not Enough
5. Strings & Things – Anorak Jack
6. Strings & Things – Hurtful Souls
7. Strings & Things – Anywhere but Down
8. Strings & Things – The Pedantic Platypus
9. Strings & Things – What If
10. Strings & Things – Sweet Daisy
11. Strings & Things – Filter
12. Strings & Things – Run from You
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