1. Flowers In Your Hair 2. Classy Girls 3. Submarines 4. Dead Sea 5. Ho Hey 6. Slow It Down 7. Stubborn Love 8. Big Parade 9. Charlie Boy 10. Flapper Girl 11. Morning Song
The Lumineers The Lumineers
You don’t normally think of hand clappin’, foot stompin’ folk when you think New Jersey. Generally people think of either Springsteen or Bon Jovi first. Maybe that’s why Jeremiah Fraites and Wesley Schultz decided to head west to Denver. There they met multi-instrumentalist Neyla Pekarek and The Lumineers as we know them today were born.
Over the past four years The Lumineers have been writing and recording their self-titled release. Its eleven tracks are full of heart-felt lyrics and classical folk melodies. The first single “Hey Ho” started receiving some indie airplay a few months ago, and it started catching on fast. As has the bands live shows, which have been expanding nationally since their first self-funded west coast tour. It’s not easy to sell a debut album without some strong word of mouth, and The Lumineers have certainly done what it takes to get it.
Like most good folk bands, you hear the influence of Bob Dylan in The Lumineers sound right from album opener “Flowers In Your Hair.” As their album progresses you also hear sounds of more current artists like Ryan Adams and the Avett Brothers. The songs are generally rooted in vocals and guitar, and if the album were only this it would be easy to lose interest after a while What takes the album up a notch is the use of piano by Fraites and the addition of Pekarek’s cello. With this added variety the lyrics and vocals provided by Schultz get the accompaniment they need over 11 tracks.
What I also like about The Lumineers is that you get a great pub sing-along atmosphere from them and the album conveys this nicely. On “Classy Girls” they include some crowd noise and on “Hey Ho” they do everything but ask you to sing along with them. It does a good job of adding the intimacy and fun of a live show that is often lost in a recording. While it’s hard to believe that it will still match the fun of The Lumineers live, the effort is much appreciated. What will be interesting is to see how this intimate pub sound handles the larger and larger venues that The Lumineers will be filling.
