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Review: 'WOODEN ARMS'
'Tide EP'   

-  Label: 'Butterfly Collectors Records'
-  Genre: 'Pop' -  Release Date: '13th October 2014'

Our Rating:
A track by track guide which draws attention to "choral harmonies, contrapuntal melodies, luscious strings, Bach plagiarisation and a percussive shuffle" will alert listeners to the fact that this Nowich-based six piece band have a distinctly chamber pop/classical folk flavour. This is only to be expected when founder member Alex Carson (vocals, piano) names Chopin and Mozart as among his chief influences.

Carsons' writing partner is Jeff Smith (trumpet, vocals, guitar) and their six compositions are sombre yet stirring reflections on passing time full of swelling rhythms and epic overtones.

Piano and violin are the dominant instruments on an album which was recorded and produced by Wild Beasts and I Like Trains engineer David Pye.

There's more than enough variation to make things rewarding. On the opening track December, for example, a lilting piano melody morphs into a mariachi death march for a New Orleans prostitute.

Other high points come where, on the title track, the violin evokes the ebb and flow of waves and when a beautiful vocal by Milly Hirst brings Noah to a dramatic conclusion.

The male voices are fragile and, at times over precious, but this does not detract from what is an ambitious and highly assured debut

Wooden Arms' website
  author: Martin Raybould

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WOODEN ARMS - Tide EP