Well, whattya know — a 10,000 Maniacs revival!<\/p>\n
Okay, not really — besides, it’s hard to have a revival when
\nthe original band is still churning away (albeit out of the
\nspotlight of the major labels). But damned if Vagabond Lovers
\ndoesn’t sound a lot like a more ambitious 10,000 Maniacs on their
\ndisc
\nWhen I Was You<\/i>. Even lead singer\/guitarist Patty Spiglanin
\nlooks a little like Natalie Merchant.<\/p>\n
What this sextet does that sets them apart is they dare to throw
\nin a little more variety in terms of musical influences, moving
\nfrom solid pop-rockers to folk-driven numbers with a natural
\nsmoothness. And although the mixture gets a little boring at times,
\nit never is bland.<\/p>\n
For the first couple of cuts on
\nWhen I Was You<\/i>, it seems like Vagabond Lovers can do
\nabsolutely no wrong. From their take on the song “Junkie” to the
\nfolk-tinged post-breakup song “For Sale Sign,” the band quickly
\nsets themselves apart from the pack as one you want to pay close
\nattention to.<\/p>\n
Their stellar record continues on and off throughout the album.
\nThey choose an interesting song to cover — “Drive” from The Cars
\n— and give it almost a Sixpence None The Richer feel thanks to to
\nthe accordion of Mike Conner. It doesn’t have quite the emotion
\nthat the original does (and I admit I never was a big fan of the
\noriginal version), but it is executed well. Other songs worthy of
\npraise include “I Got Killed,” “Kitchen” and “Living
\nIndependently.”<\/p>\n
Where
\nWhen I Was You<\/i> falls a bit short is that Vagabond Lovers
\ncan’t maintain the constant level of excellence throughout the
\nalbum – and when they stumble, things get to sounding a bit sleepy.
\nTracks like “Wonderful Thing,” “Division Street” and “You Make It
\nEasy” just don’t seem like they can live up to their potential —
\nand that’s a little disappointing.<\/p>\n
There has been a lot of buzz about
\nWhen I Was You<\/i> in the press and among listeners; for the
\nmost part, it is well deserved. Vagabond Lovers prove on this disc
\nthey still have some improvements to make, but this is a solid
\neffort that shows they’re on their way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6342],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36641","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-vagabond-lovers","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36641"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36641"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}