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Self release [Release date: 18.05.22]
The Durham County Poets is a Quebec based, soul driven, horn powered roots-rock band that is equally at home playing white boy soul, blues, funk, boogie, r&b, gospel and Americana.
Their strength lies in their ability to explore several soul tinged directions which gives the album plenty of dynamics and emotional colour. The slight downside is that their over exuberance clutters some of their arrangements, meaning that their cool horn section sometimes sounds like an unnecessary luxury.
‘Out Of The Woods’ is a pleasant roots-rock excursion shot through with a sense of post- covid optimism, as evidenced by the album title which acts as a de facto conceptual mission statement for the album as a whole.
Vocalist Kevin Harvey is at his best when evoking the early 70’s white boy soul feel of Van Morrison. This is especially so on their portentous, atmospheric cover of Dylan’s ‘Not Dark Yet’, the album highlight.
It’s a song that could have been written for the band, straddling Dylan’s lyrical acumen, Morrison’s intuitive phrasing and the feel of fellow Canadian’s The Band.
And while the band thrives in its collective diversity, the closing brush stroked simplicity of ‘That’s What Makes Me Smile’ is a welcome stripped down book-end that finds them at their best and in contrast what’s gone before.
Listen for example, to the exploratory ‘Together In The Groove’ which works hard to emulate the song title, but falls short from the moment the lovely opening guitar, Rhodes piano and horn arrangement puzzlingly stops and heads into a slightly different funky direction, albeit the lyrics fit the eventual groove perfectly: “I was living wrong not living right, staying in the groove, keeping things tight.”
In rebuilding the groove they almost stumble over the clutter of busy horn stabs and a mish-mash in which there’s a sudden drop-down to a cool guitar break, before a staccato section ushers a sonorous muted trumpet solo which unfortunately feels like a drop-in rather than a defining part of the song.
You can contrast and compare this with the later ‘Back At The Groove Shack’ which is everything the above track aims for, but doesn’t quite achieve.
Unsurprisingly released as a single, ‘Back At The Groove Shack’ benefits from a concise horn arrangement glued together by interwoven piano, horn and guitar parts. The impressive rapped out bv’s and soulful horns reminds me of early Chicago.
‘Out Of The Woods’ reveals different layers with repeated plays, as with the bluesy duet of ‘Love’s Got A Hold On Me’, one of the album’s more concise arrangements which let’s the song breathe.
The suitably titled opener ‘Working On It’ sets out a soulful template to the album as a whole, which they fill with dollops of funk, blues, boogie and echoes of Americana – as on the title track and the faux gospel and soul of the polyrhythmic ‘What We Got Going On’.
Vocalist Kevin Harvey’s weathered tenor is well suited to the material, which in truth doesn’t demand much more than applying his phrasing with the gentlest of touch. This makes for a pleasant rather than essential album, on which the funk percolates and the soulful refrains fleetingly draw us in, while the blues and boogie numbers offer familiarity rather than an emotional connection.
Some of the horn parts do hit the spot, and positively swagger on ‘Mean Old Dog’, which is anchored by a lilting bass line and punctuated by a buzzing baritone which solos imperiously at the 1.20 mark.
The horns also help rescue the clumsily titled ‘Good Kind Of Crazy’, while at other times they almost force a groove when a song doesn’t quite have the substance to incorporate what is on offer.
The band arguably saves it’s best for last on the stripped down ‘That’s What Makes Me Smile’, a song with a message they could well take to heart in their own music: “So much joy in the simple things.”
Fans of contemporary Canadian roots music will find plenty to engage them in this album. There’s enough meaningful lyrics, fine band interplay and muscular horns to suggest there’s plenty more good stuff to come. And if they haven’t quite hit the mark yet, as their opening track suggests, they are ‘Working On It’. ***½
Review by Pete Feenstra
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