Singles

We Are Willow - We Are Willow pt.2

Antonio Rowe 08/12/2010

Rating: 3.5/5

Collaborative musical projects are few and far between nowadays. Well at least ones of the genuine and sincere kind. Once intended to be a combination of talents there now mostly used in the mainstream as a marketing ploy to promote two artists at once, with the majority of the time the two collaborators being 'labelmates who were interested in each others music'. Cynicism aside, We Are Willow pt 2 sees Chris Butler carry on with his collaborative project (that was established in pt 1) albeit with a different participant - Simon Connor.

For those who are familiar with Pt. 1 won't be surprised to hear what Butler has in store for them, with this EP seeing him develop and explore his love for acoustic folk even further than the last. 'Board The Train' and 'Cold Pride' both reinforce the simple but successful relationship between the vocal and the guitar. However, it's 'Hard Lines' that's the highlight here, clearly proving Butler's strength is mixing intricate guitar lines and warm tones to a potent effect. In the wake of the success of Mumford and Sons, the amount of folk music that's been released this year is somewhat starting to resemble the guitar lad rock landfill we saw after the ubiquity of Oasis and The Strokes etc. Thankfully, this demonstrates enough originality and promise to prevent this release from becoming a mere knock-on effect of the genre's success.


Release date 13/12/2010