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They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and the same goes for albums. The strange, broken abstract design on the cover of ‘Dead Preservations’  the second album from Irish band The Annulments would lead you to believe it’s an album full of angst and existential frustration but the band’s music couldn’t be more gentle and in the main, easy-going and delightful.

Formed by a group of friends studying at University College Dublin, The Annulments musical influences range from Irish traditional to folk to alt-country and beyond. They’re made up of Stephen Coyle who writes all the songs, sings and plays guitar, Claire Fitzgerald (vocals), Richard Gill (bass), Shane Keeling (drums), Nick Cooper (violin and viola), and Peter Moran (keyboards). There are also appearances by Cillian Murphy (saxophone) and Ray Martin (trumpet). The album was superbly produced by Tom Cosgrove at Ailfionn Studios in Dublin.

The album is unusual as the two lead singers, Coyle and Fitzgerald alternate on most of the tracks and they couldn’t be more different in style. Fitzgerald has an old-timey feel to her voice as if she’s just stepped out your radio during a Grand Ole Opry broadcast on WSM whilst Coyle’s voice comes straight out of his luxuriant beard and is infused with peat and Guinness. Most of the tracks feature them alternating on the tracks and the shame is that with their two distinctive voices that they don’t duet more as they do on ‘Another Voice’ or add their harmonies as Fitzgerald does delightfully on ‘Difficult Things’ and ‘Into The Dark’.
There are eleven tracks on ‘Dead Preservations’ and for ten of them, the best way to describe the overall feel is “gentle”. Most of the tracks are mid-tempo and basically acoustic with drummer Keeling playing mostly with brushes and hardly ever picks up his sticks in anger. Cooper’s fiddle combines an Irish folk sound with some Appalachian overtones and there’s also the Americana staples of pedal steel, harmonica and piano.

Tracklist: 
01 Reckoning
02 Difficult Things
03 The Calm Before
04 Pilot Light
05 To Get Me Through
06 Into the Dark
07 What Did You Want to Say to Me
08 Another Vice
09 Animal
10 Behind the Lines
11 You and Me

Staat er compleet op, 20% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster.

“Muziek is kunst en kunst moet voor iedereen bereikbaar zijn, anders is het elitair.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4cK3yb8ZaA