If there is such a thing as progressive folk, and I can’t be the first to have used such a label, then Rob Massard definitely makes music of that ilk. And Thousand River Sun is all the proof you need, an album packed with acoustic vibes and deftly wrought, not to mention perfectly executed, folk songs. But it is also an album that takes that rootsy sound as a baseline and pushes through other styles and sounds, genres and creative outlooks to build something that is definitely folk…only more so…broader, higher, deeper in its exploration of the genre.
I Hang on Every Moment is a 12-minute opus blending delicate folk moves with chiming, hazy dream-pop vibes, I Let It Come to Me is floating and minimalist, backed up with distant banks of heavenly choirs, Onward (Yes) is a spiralling and shimmering instrumental, with the voice used as an instrument more than a form of direct communication and Illuminations of Day Break is the sight of the sun coming up to announce a new day transposed into the medium of music.
It’s a positive, hopeful and peaceful album, three things that the world is in short supply of these days.
[…] Rob Massard does things with music that would make the dyed-in-the-wool guardians of folk traditions all hot under the collar. He runs his rootsy sound through an almost progressive filter and cloaks his songs in indie cool and classical grace, adds both ambience and energy to the proceedings, and offers terrific musical alternatives. In short, he helps move forward a genre that has long been too happy to tread water. […]