Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Album Review: "Muirhead" by Andy Ferro

Muirhead
The best heavy metal movie of all time is the incomparable, Spinal Tap.

Scores of heavy metal musicians have since gleefully told their stories of their personal Spinal Tap moments. How many artists have claimed that the movie was about them?

Of course if you're reading me, you probably have a passing interest in heavy metal and likely have already seen that movie in all its majesty, glory, and pomposity.

Less favored is the "sequel" made many years later, not the second Tap movie, but A Mighty Wind.

That movie reminded me a lot about what I love about folk music. There's nothing as intimate as standing there with simply a guitar and singing what you feel. It's also a damned funny movie that everyone should have seen at least thrice.

Andy Ferro
Today we consider the first solo release of The Raunch's Andy Ferro.

I know nothing of that group, so we'll take it as read.

Muirhead immediately sounds vintage, modern, and like it was recorded on a boom box in Ferro's bedroom.

That to me is superior credibility. Folk music shouldn't be crafted on Pro-Tools with chorus filters.

It should be dirty, powerful, and barely audible.

Ferro has that classic voice of the Folk Revolution of the late 50's and 60's, even though that was some fifty years ago.

Mostly, this album is Ferro's voice and guitar, but there are other little accents that creep in: electric guitar solos, birds chirping, and other Pink Floyd-y sound effects. There is zero percussion.

Even with out them, these songs are hypnotically rhythmic. Toes will be tapping. It's inevitable. Just accept it and move on. This is a short record that says all that needs to be said.

Muirhead is an alt-folk album that keeps the memory and the dream alive.

Release: 2/26/16
Genre: Folk
Label: Rough Beast Records

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