As we found out when listening to the wonderfully cinematic Anywhere, Everywhere, The Singer and The Songwriter revel in escape, freedom, travel and more importantly sharing that journey together. They are themes which run openly through their latest e.p. Direction, painting pictures of heading off into the unknown, of exploration and the desire to see what is just over the horizon. And whilst the cinematic, widescreen Americana of that single is also present on opening track Wild Heart, the space afforded by a mini album shows that they love to travel across genres just as much as they do across state lines.
Give Love is a lovely lilting and soulful gospel groove and Worried No More is an old school country rock strut but it is the last two songs on the e.p. which reveal a less categorisable side to the band. Show Me The Mountain is a strange, primal ritual, built on beats and ancient voices calling from beyond time and things round off with Apparent Brightness which seems to be a collection of celestial voices sent down from a higher plane and made to serve time in a quirky folk-pop band. And why not?
It is a surprising and wonderfully gathering of songs and whilst you always feel that their hearts are out there on the open road, even when they are physically elsewhere, the fact that they channel those ideas through such a wide range of styles and genres, even inventing a few new ones on the way, just shows that this is a band whose approach to music is as broad minded as is their love of exploring the world around them. If only their were more people like them, the world would be a friendlier and more understanding, not to mention musically diverse, sort of place.
