Fire Proof - Dawn Landes Album Review

Photo By:Mathieu Zazzo

Album Review

Recording engineer goes to.... the other side.

Originally from Kentucky, now Brooklyn based, Dawn Landes brings her roots to the Big Apple with style and credibility. Her strikingly beautiful voice is a major feature of the simple recordings done at an old fire station in Red Hook in Brooklyn NY. Recorded mostly live with seven musical buddies who play instruments as varied as traditional banjos, pedal steel, and harmonica to less trad optigons, thumb and toy pianos. The results are quite dazzling; on what can be considered contemporary or alt-folk music. There's a very good batch of songs to get your teeth into, especially the snapped introduced plucky rocker Bodyguard, a cool opener. Covering traditional I Don't Need A Man, her hollowed vocals steer the delightful simple rocker. There's no doubt, for me anyway, Landes comes works best when she's just doing straightforward acoustic ballads such as Tired Of This Life because once again, her pristine singing is in sharper focus. Twilight does the same for her, though the pedal steel is a sumptuous addition. Sugar coated Goodnight Lover is probably the kind of song that might capture the UK's imagination, but other songs, however good they are, may struggle. Oh..and..don't forget to remember the hidden acoustic cover of Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down that follows the door shutting effect on closer You Alone. It's pretty impressive.

File under: Very cool country-folk.

Elly Roberts