EVENING HYMNS - Spirit Guides
Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 05:55PM 
Organic stuff is all the rage right now with our food and drink, so why not with our music, too? OK, maybe not, but if that was the case, I would suggest stocking the aisles of your favourite organic music shop with Spirit Guides. This nine-song album exudes a connection to the natural world—so much so that the soaring chorus to "Mtn. Song" proclaims that "the world is a mountain", while penultimate track "November 1st, 2008, Lakefield, Ontario" is an unaltered five-minute field recording of a rainstorm.
But Evening Hymns bandleader and songwriter Jonas Bonnetta doesn't just sit back and let nature do all the talking. Spirit Guides may be a lush, unhurried foray into ruminant, orchestral folk-pop—complete with the able backing of members of bands such as Forest City Lovers, The D'Urbervilles and Ohbijou (whose drummer Jamie Bunton recorded the album)—but these ruminations ain't just granola. Instead, the record embraces the grey, with tracks like "Dead Deer" and "Broken Rifle" shifting ably between brilliant light and murky menace. This gentle tug-of-war is carefully expressed by gorgeous arrangements that see the record blossom effortlessly from guy-and-a-guitar plainspeak into full-throated calls of strings and voices.
It's a record that conveys the balance of solitude and lump-in-the-throat beauty one encounters on their best hikes in the woods—moments where you go to witness nature but end up thinking more about your own place in it. In this way, the natural world this record ultimately delves into is that of human nature, its casual approach disarming you to its powers within.
(Evening Hymns will perform a live in-store set here in our shop on Wed. Dec 2 at 7pm.)
Reader Comments (1)
I cannot wait until Evening Hymns plays at Soundscapes. For that matter, I also can't wait till he plays at Tranzac.
Nice review!