Album Review: Kieran Kane & Rayna Gellert, ‘Volume 4’
Like pure rain falling, the crystal vocals and harmonies of Kieran Kane and Rayna Gellert wash over, cleansing our hearts and souls. Their new album, Volume 4, is the last release on Dead Reckoning Records, an anniversary of the first album on the label thirty years ago, Kieran’s Dead Reckoning. The duo’s new album features the warm lead vocals and harmonies and intimate instrumentation we’ve come to expect from the duo.
Gentle fingerpicking and strumming opens the lush and meditative “I Can’t Wait,” a tender testimony to faith and hope and the anticipation of a time when a new world of promise will be revealed. Spare and spacious, the exquisite song creates an atmosphere for reflection and allows listeners to ponder their own journeys in life. Gellert’s vibrant fiddling drives the melody line on the hand-clapping jug band rambler “Whatcha Gonna Do about It,” a protest song that acts as an affirmation that change is gonna come because, once the momentum gets going, you can’t hold it back. The unhurried cadence of Kane’s never-before-recorded “The Mansion Above” evokes the yearning for peace in a world “where rivers sparkle like diamonds.” Such peace comes only through resolving conflict with others and division within oneself. With her prancing fiddle runs, Gellert takes the traditional tune “Saddle Up the Grey” for a lively canter out in the country, while the bluesy “Short Con” captures the swish and swirl of the many facets of a confidence game, whether it’s in love or politics. Led by Gellert’s spry fiddling, the pair offers up a buoyant take on the traditional tune “Muddy Road, perfect for a little front porch clogging. The album includes another never-before-recorded song, “Keep My Heart in Mind,” a quietly beautiful folk-pop ballad that recalls the early Jesse Colin Young.
Listening to Kane’s and Gellert’s simply titled fourth album, Volume 4, is like being invited into the pair’s living room for an intimate, and rousing, listening experience.
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