Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars
Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars
Tree
Wooden Stars
The Moon
Matlock
Julie’s Will You Still Love Me? EP was a haunting, spare record of just guitar and vocals with occasional accents from organ and vibes. This time around, Julie is joined by her friends in the Wooden Stars. The heart of the songs still lies in her lyrics and touchingly fragile, hushed vocals, but the instrumentation is much fuller, and complements her melodies and word-painted atmospheres in a different, equally successful way. Her songs are pretty enough on their own but still it’s nice to hear added details in the painting this time around.
Julie returns the favor a bit by singing backups on three songs on the Wooden Stars’ The Moon, an album filled with indie pop songs that are confident yet moody, fluid and slightly tense. There’s some quality about Michael Feuerstack’s voice that seems to mesmerize me. Some combination of the tone and the way he draws out and phrases things, I think. At any rate, the vocals nestle in nicely amongst the sweetly melancholy sounds. The opening track, “Outlaws,” is a favorite for sure, with its catchy guitar hook and Julie and Michael’s sweet harmonies.
Tree, P.O. Box 578582, Chicago, IL 60657; http://www.treerecords.com; Matlock Records, 1858 Blvd. Auclair, Sainte-Foy, QC Canada, G2G 1R7
