Review: Elephant Revival – ‘These Changing Skies’
by Kim Ruehl for FolkAlley.com
Americana/folk bands from Colorado tend to write songs with a few common threads. Whether it’s the enormity of the Rocky Mountains or the gamut of weather patterns enjoyed by that state, its roots music players make a habit of creating music that sounds like it’s one with the nature by which it’s surrounded. Elephant Revival may have started with one foot in Oklahoma, but their Colorado roots run just as deep. Their latest album These Changing Skies, sounds like it’s swimming in a Boulder moonlight.
From the atmospheric, long-bowed fiddle lines to the quiet, dreamy harmonies and occasional weeping musical saw, the disc is replete with creative arrangements. It feels like a bit of a departure from previous efforts that have verged on the newgrass/jamband style. This time around, they seem to have shirked expectations and decided to just lean harder on their Celtic, pop, and bluegrass influences. The result is an aesthetic all their own, straddling all of contemporary folk music’s various, assumed boundaries.
Of course it helps that every song is danceable, backed by a constant buoyant rhythm. Even the slower songs seem to bop about on an easy breeze. By the time “Down to the Sea” swells under the syncopated build of a couple of fiddles and, ultimately, electric guitar, it feels as though the album has its own beating heart.
Elephant Revival have been slowly making strides across the national folk circuit these past few years, but These Changing Skies is likely to be the catapult that sails them above and beyond many of the up-and-coming bands of the genre. Or, at the very least, it should establish them on a grander stage. Defying the trend of creating radio-friendly indie roots music, Elephant Revival has shifted its focus to finding a path most suitable to its talents. As a result, every song is good. What more can you want?
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WATCH: more Elephant Revival videos produced by Folk Alley at this year’s Fayetteville Roots Festival.
“Ring Around the Moon”
“In Love and Rage”
“Remembering A Beginning”
