Brothers Ladies and Gentlemen, they have taken their time on this one and it’s paid off. The first 8 seconds of Pretty Darn’s new album “Brothers” utilizes a multitude of tools from the band’s shiny and warm toolbox: Nate Douglas’ slow djembe groove and the dichotomy of two lush and intimate vocals of the bands core, Kyle Wareham and Nick Poulin, gives you an instant sense of “Holy shit, I need to sit down and listen to this.” Poulin’s focused falsetto comes to light within its own space and time, while Wareham rides the faders and makes the album sit in this extremely comfortable spot.
That’s the trick.
Wareham, as a songwriter and producer, has the ability to make something new sound old, he has the ability to make you feel like you’ve heard the song 100 times and you don’t want to take it off the stereo.
As a tenured islander, the band’s relationship between their home, this place we call the Lowcountry, and the way they present every song makes me proud of the place we live. We are sincerely lucky to live in a place full of so much talent, and even luckier to have bands with a work ethic and ethos who put out a cohesive grouping of honest and well thought out songs.
There’s a hook on the fourth track “Belong” where the receptive use of “I belong” shows the spirit of where these dudes are at in their lives. They are comfortable with who they are, what they do and the direction they are going. There is a realism of space that shouts this intimate feeling of being in the room as the band tracked the song. It paints a picture in your head of the way these two vocalists teeter on the brink of absolute emotional rawness, and trying to deliver a cohesive idea of the craft of songwriting.
Jared Templeton’s co-writing shines on the second song, “Brothers”. This is the hit and title track.
We have all been in a relationship with someone we love that isn’t always perfect. That’s what being brothers, or sisters, means to a lot of us. We love this person and even though they can’t get over their own bullshit, or we can’t get over our personal qualms, at the end of the day it’s the love that finds its way through.
Seventh in the line-up is Poulin’s track “Holding on to Hopefully”, declared by my wife as “the song that made me fall in with Nicky P.”, was previously recorded as part of CH2’s “Rock the Triangle” Soundcloud compilation in 2015. Its new life on the album finds its rightful place in the sonic universe. The openness and space gives way to Poulin’s haunting vocal line and relays a message of hope to all of us who find ourselves at a low point. Hold onto to what’s ahead, tomorrow is going to be better than today.
It’s obvious Wareham, Poulin and the band sat for lengths as they sketched out a landscape that not only paints a physical picture of the slow tide and sunsets, but a personal statement about what it means to be an islander with your friends, girlfriend, wife and family. Pretty Darn is on its way to greatness and my only complaint is that record is only eight songs long… I wish there was more. ... See more
Brothers, an album by Pretty Darn on Spotify
