Beta Radio - Seven Sisters [2010] [FLAC]

one of Dicks Americana collection

1.Either Way 02:15
2.Darden Road 04:19
3.Where Losers Do 03:23
4.Hello Lovely 02:00
5.Brother Sister (free) 05:47
6.Khima 02:22
7.Borderline 03:41
8.Highlight On The Hill 03:23
9.Pleiades 02:54
10.A Place For Me 05:27
11.Return To Darden Road 03:21

Some time ago on Beta Radio’s MySpace page I saw where a person commented that the band’s music made her happy. Truthfully, that was probably the best, and easily most necessary review of “Seven Sisters” required. I think that statement is perfect for the simple rationale that it’s precise and true. Sometimes simple is best. “Seven Sisters” is a superb album. It bears a quality all its own, derived from earnest singing and songwriting built upon gentle acoustic guitar, banjo playing and a smattering of other instruments that add to the album’s folksy, gypsy singer-songwriter feel.

If music is comfort food then Beta Radio’s debut is what the philosophy means to extol. “Seven Sisters” envelops you, embracing by way of a country-folk, and occasionally, a church feel. Its wandering-through-the-country texture lends the songs to small town environs and family life, of love and heartache. There are songs that linger via their pleasant rhythms and Mabry’s engaging vocals. His voice is friendly, deftly mirroring people’s emotions. In “Darden Road” Mabry sings “Don’t want to clean my room/Cause I might clean my memories of you” and sounds wholly genuine. He makes those sentiments real, not just as gestations or contrivances of them.

Mabry has a singular voice. He doesn’t merely sing well, his voice is distinctive. As a singer he traverses between cool and calm to temperate and soaring, like Bono trying to be Paul Simon. On the somber “A Place for Me” he begins with a subtle growl and when reaching the chorus stretches out in a pained timbre. The horns at the end make the song gravitate. On “Khima” Mabry’s vocals is a breeze crossing a front porch as Holloman steadily plays the banjo. It recalls the distant and lost quality of U2’s “Mothers of the Disappeared.” Mabry sings “I was wrong, I was wrong” and the song sounds like territory “Amazing Grace” once charted.

Mabry and guitarist Brent Holloman know how to write good songs, not just catchy and memorable ones. “Where Losers Do” and “Either Way” are such obvious choices for radio singles and it doesn’t hurt their music is overtly picturesque. Sincerity and soulfulness will carry them a long way, mirroring the presence of performers like Simon & Garfunkel, Natalie Merchant or James Taylor. “Seven Sisters” illustrate Mabry and Holloman as a great recipe, a combination of singer and musician that will likely produce more outstanding music.

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