Yorkshire five piece YoungBelievers recently released their second EP entitled "She's AWriter". The self-titled track from that EP was played on Tom Robinson's
introducing show on BBC 6 music, a great achievement in itself. Folk is
somewhat of a dead genre in today's pop dominated charts, if you're going to
release folk, you need to do it in style. Recent examples would be MichaelKiwanuka who adds soul, Bon Iver who add baroque and dare I say it Jake Bugg,
who actually adds an Americana aspect to his 90s revitalisation of Britpop.
Having just mentioned Jake Bugg,
I took time to listen to "Lightning Bolt" on YouTube. Low and behold
a 'Top Comment' with 19 likes read, "Lots of great new Dylan-esk
music around. Fear Walks With You by Young Believers is worth checking out as
well," which
brings me to Young Believers. "Fear Walks With You" is not your
conventional folk track, it has style... Finger style to be precise. Although
this Young Believers are a work in progress, they're pretty much up to standard
with their structures, melody and meaning. This style of folk won't ever be on
par with the likes of Roy Harper or Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, but it will
exist and survive in modern music more than regular old acoustic guitar with
four basic chords.
The track opens with a synthetic acoustic guitar riff, percussion the follows. The bass is rather quiet and in the back, precisely where I want it to be. There’s actually a left sided banjo that grabs my attention straight away. The fingerpicking sits on the right speaker and the percussion moulds it all together with the harmonic vocal. Downtempo is brought to mind because of the slow and relaxing feel this track has. It's a solid track with a wide variety of instruments used.
~Eddie
