LEIF VOLLEBEKK plays the Rivoli as part of CMF on Wednesday (March 20) and the Marriott Hotel and Holy Oak on March 21. Rating: NNN
Leif Vollebekk’s new album has plenty of passion. Mostly it’s heard in the Montreal-based folk singer/songwriter’s vocals, which are confident, expressive and inflected with a bluesy delivery and a countryish accent. Reedy blasts of harmonica often punctuate the proceedings, but beyond that, the instrumentation is sparse and subdued: quiet guitar-strumming, wafts of steel guitar, drums played with brushes, elegant piano.
Vollebekk’s second album is consistently mid-tempo, with vivid lyrics that lean toward the bleak (Pallbearer Blues, Cairo Blues, A Wildfire Took Down Rosenberg) and drop references to Lou Reed and William Blake along the way. Occasionally, pretty piano takes the place of acoustic guitar as the primary instrument, as on the short but effective Photographer Friend and the memorable, hummable Pallbearer Blues, adding distinctness to an album that suffers from a lack of it.
Top track: Pallbearer Blues