When you review music for a long-azz time (we’re talking almost 15 years in my case) you see a TON of bands come and go. A lot of them seem like a big deal at the time even if you know in your heart they suck balls, and sure enough, most of the time the youthful heart/enthusiasm these same artists are purported to possess is directed into other, more profitable enterprise within a few years and you’d barely know they existed if you weren’t obsessively following the underground musical beast’s every shift. Village Of Spaces (also at one point dubbed Village Of Spaces Corners County) are one of the few bands that have lasted all these years, from the Skyscraper days on through the era of Gumshoe Grove (my ill-fated blog you never read) and Signal To Noise (RIP) and right up to the wonderful present, and it’s a pleasure to continue to receive their music in the mail because they’ve always done folk right. And if you don’t realize how awe-inspiringly difficult that is then you obviously haven’t heard as many awful folk yolks as I have (particularly when the BOOM was happening in 2004-05). I’d link Village Of Spaces to, say, Richard and Linda Thompson if I were forced to make a comparison, but VOS forge their own path and, per Welcome In, seem to be consumed by their singular vision; perhaps that’s why they’ve stuck around for so long while other fruits die before they’re fully ripe. Another reason might be their impeccable devotion to song craft, which shines through the lovely “Wheels” like a flashlight was jammed in its maw, and generally permeates this entire full-length effort. There’s something familial about their music, and I’m not speculating on the relationship of the principle members of the band as much as I’m letting you know that, when listening to Welcome In, I tend to think of my own family and how much they mean to me. It might be a simplistic thing (the Purdums take a lot of road trips, perhaps summoning “Wheels”?) or it might go a lot deeper than that, to the point where Village Of Spaces’ music provides such a soft caress I can’t not think about the ones I love or even have loved when I listen to their bare, acoustic meanderings. (The little snips of a crying baby don’t hurt, either.) Whatever the reason for my personal feelings I’m glad there still are folkists out there that can pen a ditty that conjures open spaces, the forest, small, dilapidated folk venues, and the aspects of this life that I treasure.
More about: Villages Of Spaces
