Penny & Sparrow – Finch (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/48 kHz | Time – 35:28 minutes | 404 MB | Genre: Indie Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © I Love You
Beginning with 2013’s Tenboom, the staunchly DIY pair Penny & Sparrow released a series of critically lauded records that garnered comparisons to the hushed intimacy of Iron & Wine and the adventurous beauty of James Blake, building up a devoted fanbase along the way through relentless touring and word-of-mouth buzz. NPR praised the band s songwriting as a delicate dance between heartache and resolve, while The World Café raved that they’ve steadily built a sound as attentive to detail as Simon & Garfunkel and as open to the present day as Bon Iver. Penny & Sparrow s magnificent sixth album Finch is titled as a nod to Charles Darwin, who developed his theory of evolution in part by studying the changes that manifested over time in groups of birds that moved to different islands across the Galapagos, and it s easy to see the connection. The album finds the band reckoning with a prolonged period of intense personal transformation, a profound awakening that altered their perceptions of masculinity, sex, religion, divorce, friendship, vanity, purpose, and, perhaps most importantly, self. Deeply vulnerable and boldly cinematic, the resulting songs blur the lines between indie-folk and alt-pop, with dense string arrangements and atmospheric production underpinning soaring melodies and airtight harmonies. It’s a revelatory collection, both for the listener and the performers, one that s been a lifetime in the making.
Dreamy Texan indie folk duo Penny & Sparrow have been at it since 2011, diligently touring, recording, and adapting their earnest, electro-organic, Bon Iver-inspired approach over five full-length releases. Built around the simple palette of acoustic guitar and two voices singing in harmony, members Kyle Jahnke and Andy Baxter have flirted with the CCM scene, made lush semi-orchestral overtures, recorded a Christmas album, and gone lo-fi with a self-recorded living room album. They’ve squeezed a lot of work into their eight years together and on 2019’s Finch, their sixth album, the two friends continue their evolution both as people and artists. Somewhat of a grab bag of previously explored and as-yet-untested Penny & Sparrow styles, Finch sees the duo carrying on with the partly stripped-down feel from 2017’s Wendigo, with detours into rich string-laden balladry, nods to their own spirituality, a bit of indie pop soul, and plenty more of their still-earnest harmonic rafter-raising. Co-produced with Chris Jacobie in San Antonio, Finch’s arrangements favor Jahnke’s and Baxter’s inherent sense of drama, with thick layers of reverb painting the mostly organic instrumentation as the two singers dip and swell with practiced finesse. The lovelorn stomp-and-clap feel of “Eloise” plays to the duo’s strengths in a rousing crescendo of soulful falsettos, while the springy folk-pop of “Don’t Wanna Be Without Ya” takes their romantic nature in a more up-tempo direction. With its gentle strumming, light synth burbles, and woozy strings, “Cult Classically” is a mid-album standout and another vehicle for those effortless harmonies Penny & Sparrow seem to handle so well. A few songs later, the breezy “Recuerda” swoons affectionately amid eerie swirling synths and quavering electric guitars. For all of their ambitions, though, the ghost of Bon Iver’s sensuous cabin pop still looms rather large in Penny & Sparrow’s aesthetic, and their own personalities have to work double time to rise above the contemporary soft pop parameters in which they’ve chosen to work. They do succeed in places, especially on the two aforementioned cuts, though it would be interesting to hear them take a few legitimate left turns here and there. ~ Timothy Monger
Tracklist:
1. Long Gone (03:15)
2. Eloise Preamble (00:45)
3. Eloise (02:48)
4. Don’t Wanna Be Without Ya (03:27)
5. Cult Classically (03:37)
6. Bishop (04:38)
7. Recuerda (04:11)
8. Hannah (03:02)
9. Stockholm (03:36)
10. It’s Hysterical (03:29)
11. Gumshoe (02:40)
Download:
