Rating: NNN
Maybe it’s because he’s stuck the word “brass” in the album’s title, or maybe it’s because the insert has pictures of people playing brass instruments and other cool things, but it kind of seemed like Los Angeles’s Ferraby Lionheart was going for that singer/songwriter orch-pop thing.
Not so much, really. Aside from a couple of moments on Before We’re Dead, with its horn section doing its best New Orleans jazz bombast, Brass Ring is a considerably more sedate affair. Lionheart’s sleepy, slightly mournful croon conjures Rufus Wainwright on a few melancholic piano ballads, as well as echoing M. Ward’s feather-soft guitar-based style.
What appeared to be an experiment in folk-meets-walls-of-warm-brass is really just an exercise in perfectly good but not amazing singer/songwriter tunes that could probably be mistaken for several other performers’ material.
Ferraby Lionheart plays the Horseshoe Friday (September 28).
