Winnipeg based roots trio Red Moon Road offer up a solid debut of their original campfire folk music on their self titled CD.
The CD, produced by Crash Test Dummies’ Murray Pulver, starts off with the haunting ethereal vocals of Sheena Rattai who sings a couple mellow ballads laid down on a bed of fiddle, piano, mandolin and stand up bass and tenderly picked acoustic guitars from Daniel Jordan and banjo/ mandolin player Daniel Peloquin-Hopfner.
It picks up on ‘Private Love,’ a highlight of the CD about a man in a relationship with a mean woman.
Rattai sounds like a more restrained Sarah McLachlan on the beautiful songs she sings. But it’s a good thing they change up the lead vocals because as pretty as Rattai’s vocals are, they are very similar sounding.
‘Liesel Friedl ’ takes the listener back to a simpler more rural time and dangerous time behind the Iron Curtain as Leisle tries to escape the Soviet Union with her family. The beautiful picking is punctuated by spontaneous ‘drum’ solos, probably resulting from banging on the body of an acoustic guitar. There are a variety of themes and subjects explored here including various wildlife, immigration and more folkloric subjects like ‘Come Home’ a song about a child kidnapped by an evil witch, ‘Demons’ about just that and ‘Why He Left the Ocean’ a shanty about a retired sailor.
There is even a French language song ‘Qu’allons-nous Faire?’ a peppy number reflecting Péloquin-Hopfner’s family’s Métis roots sung by Rattai.
Throughout there are gorgeous vocal harmonies especially on ‘Lingering,’ ‘Qu’allons-nous Faire?’and which sounds like a more folky Bare Naked Ladies track.
Oh My Darling’s Allison DeGroot adds extra banjo to ‘Qu’allons-nous Faire?’ as well.
They end the CD on the immediately appealing ‘Hypothetical Girl,” which sounds like a song Todd Snider might sing. The kazoo adds to the appeal and makes it my faovurite track, not to mention a great way to end a superb debut.
CD: Red Moon Road
Band: Red Mood Road
Genre: folk
Record Label: Indie
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