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Album Details

• Artist: James William Hindle
• Album: Town Feeling
• Label: Birdman
• Year of Release: 2005
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: bbuckingham on 2005-11-04

Sensitive, fragile singer-songwriters with considerate acoustic backing are pretty common these past few years. And one can be forgiven for steering clear of the genre. The late 60s and early 70s left us with a rich well (Neil Young, Tim Buckley, Tim Hardin, Fred Neil) that nearly all of today's practitioners are drawing heavily from, most often arriving at less that satisfactory results.
James William Hindle manages to stand out in the crowd with his crisp folk pop, merging strands of Americana, indie pop (Go Betweens, Belle And Sebastian) and classic elements from ye olde singer-songwriter canon. "Dark Is Coming" stands out as a highlight - a Smiths-style arpeggiated guitar figure weaves around Hindle's downbeat delivery. Album opener "Dog & Boy" takes a page out of the Harvest notebook, curling pedal steel lines wrapped around a lacrymose waltz.
The backing band features a who's who of the new American indie-folk - Andy Cabic from Vetiver, Kevin Barker of Currituck County, and Otto Hauser from Espers - all contributing greatly to realizing Hindle's songs. Perhaps Hindle's strength his ability to put emphasis on the pop end of the folk-pop equation. "Town Feeling" is a welcome escape from the malaise of coffeehouse confessional folk.

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