The Reckoners, a folk/country duo from Vancouver are not trying to bowl you over with a huge arrangement of instruments- and that’s the best thing about their debut EP, …And the Sky Opened Up. This is probably one of the most enchanting listens I’ve experienced in a while.
The duo, Christina Simpson and Ricardo Khayatte have the most wonderful chemistry. You can almost get the feeling that the two are lovers that have experienced the all the ways of the world. Both contribute flawless, breathy vocals (often together) and the only audible instruments are very gentle drums (almost sounding like taps) and very pleasant, soft acoustic guitar chords.
The songs generally deal with love and traveling the road, with many songs featuring both these themes. With these topics come a lot of great lyrics, such as “I wish I was raised by wolves/And free to roam this here land.” from the album opener “Eye for an Eye.” My favourite lyric of the EP is probably from “The Wanderer,” when Khayatte says “There ain’t fiction like the truth to make you think twice.”
The EP is at its most beautiful at “Too Tough to Love” which cranks the beauty up to eleven. The most memorable acoustic chords are here, and has a beautifully-worded chorus: “I was branded with an awkward grin/Dark brown eyes and suffering/But I’m too tough to love and rearrange/But honey you’re just as strange.”
In short, I was absolutely blown away by this album, not knowing what to expect and coming out with, without a doubt, one of this year’s hidden gems of folk music. I can only hope their future LP’s sound like this one- I’ll probably become a lifelong fan of theirs.
http://glasspaperweight.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/review-and-the-sky-opened-up-the-reckoners/
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