Wednesday 22 September 2010

Heathers – Here, Not There (Aunthill Records)

Heathers are an Irish female acoustic duo consisting purely of vocals and acoustic guitar. Apart from a cello subtly providing a drone to two songs on the album there is absolutely no other instrumentation which is quite a bold move. In my opinion you have to be either an amazing guitarist or an extremely talented songwriter to get away with such a minimal setup…

As the first chord of ‘Remember When’ is struck, the sound is loud and boomy: If you only have one instrument in a band you might as well make it sound huge, right? The vocals are as aggressive as the guitar playing, with both band members always singing at the same time, sometimes with harmonies and others with counter melodies. However there is no sign of that intricate guitar playing or complex song writing I was hoping for to make this an interesting album.


I never expected Heathers to sound like a punk act, but they do. This makes me wonder where the rest of the band is. Surely there must have been a point when they thought about getting more instruments involved. As it is, the songs start to sound very similar to one another as you get three or four tracks in which is a shame as they really shouldn’t do. If Heathers had a full band production, I can imagine the songs having enough variety to keep interest but this just doesn’t happen with an acoustic guitar and two vocal lines. As it is it becomes an album that you can switch off from and still enjoy, but not something you would want to listen intently to. 5/10


www.myspace.com/heatherswhatsyourdamage

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