Jim James, performing under his IKEA stage name, takes us back to a time when folk music was less about being stubborn, pretentious, middle-aged, and pungeant, and…
Wait, let me start over. Jim James once again proves that folk music has evolved very little and that’s the way we like it.
Listening to this 6-song EP while sitting in interminable shore-traffic is like actually being at a Jim James concert; blank stares and the stinging feeling that time has ceased to exist as you know it.
Folk music is only appealing to those who embrace how boring it is…much like Sudoku.
While folk is the musical equivalent to perusing paint samples or waiting for a duplicate-key to be made at Home Depot, the folk rock band tends to break this rigid stereotype.
My Morning Jacket, Bright Eyes, the Felice Brothers, and Bob Dylan often proved the old ‘don’t judge an album by its cover’ axiom by accomplishing new and interesting feats with what would otherwise be slow, grey, drab material. Much like jeans with rhinestones.
Even if this album fails to get you off, it will surely generate solid anticipation for MONSTERS of FOLK, the collaborative studio album from Yim Yames, M. Ward, and Conor Oberst (fucking finally).
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