Jim Bryson & The Weakerthans: The Falcon Lake Incident (Maple Music, 2010)

Jim Bryson is a canadian folk singer-songwriter who has teamed up with one of the best bands in the world, The Weakerthans. Last winter they packed their gear and and travelled to Falcon Lake, Manitoba and spent six days in a cottage recording this beautiful album. Based on the press photos, the weather was extremely cold, but the end result of these recordings still sounds quite warm and very comfortable. Even so comfortable that I’m smiling also during the heartbreaking moments. I’m just in love with the overall feel of the record. It sounds very down-to-earth, but still has a lot of depth & detail. The song material is mostly amazing as well. Beautiful folk songs are the centerpoints, but Jim Bryson also has a good pop sense. For example Metal Girls is just a great folky pop song. Only minor issue that I have is that the quality of the material drops a tiny bit during the last third of the album and especially Up All Night and Decidedly seem “only good” to me. Of course, It’s mostly because I got too used to the almost perfect quality of the first half of this extremely lovely record.

Jim Bryson Website
Jim Bryson at myspace

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbA89cLxBYQ]