ARTIST: Tree By Leaf
TITLE: Of The Black & The Blue
LABEL: Long Ago Light
GENRE: Folk-Rock
TIME: 36:18 min
SIZE:  43,7 MB
RIP DATE: Aug-02-2005
RELEASE DATE: Jul-26-2005
WEBSITE: n/a

Track List:

01. Meloncholy Chorus                          03:07
02. Never Seems To Leave                       03:38
03. You Show All The Signs                     03:22
04. That's Why I Keep On                       02:21
05. Rupert Sheldrake's Favorite                04:25
06. Give It All That You Can                   05:57
07. On A Cold Norwegian Tile                   02:48
08. Regardless Of The Cost                     02:48
09. There Is A Last Time                       02:59
10. The Last Song Luke Seamon Gave Me          04:53

Release Notes:

It is a privilege of music journalism that never
diminishes with time – the knowledge that through
your work, you occasionally announce the presence of
an Artist to a hither- to largely unaware audience.
This band definitely fall into that prestigious
category – I am excited by this album in a way only
Post to Wire and Loomer’s Love Is A Dull Instrument
have managed to arouse in me in recent memory. 'Of
The Black & The Blue' is the third release from the
trio based in Freedom, Maine. In addition to Garrett
Soucy's songs and guitar playing, he shares lead
vocal duties with one Siiri Soucy (cue White Stripes
like enquiries at the local Centre for Birth, Deaths
& Marriages, or we could of course, just ask them)
as well as the keyboards of Clifford Young. For the
purposes of this album, producer Ezra Rugg does his
Ethan Johns thing & plays drums and bass parts,
while the guitars are augmented by some quite
stunning contributions from Nick Cody. There is
something about this record that grabs me & I am
struggling to define precisely what it is - a slight
problem when it comes to communicating a review,
granted. The songs and arrangements are not exactly
taking risks, but there are elements that elevate
Tree By Leaf way above their peers. Part of it is
the synergy between the two Soucy voices. Siiri is
no backing vocalist - her delivery on songs such as
'Give It All That You Can' and the self penned
'There Is A Last Time' are forth write and
confident. For his part, Garrett has an interesting
voice - on 'Never Seems To Leave' he is the image of
Jeff Tweedy singing How To Fight Loneliness, while
'The Last Song Luke Seamon Gave To Me' is pure
Eitzel. Those comparisons afford me an excellent
link into Soucy's writing style, for it is they &
perhaps Coner Oberst that come to mind when
listening to his work. It is a use of at once
personal but still universal narrative that set him
toe to toe against anyone writing within the genre
at this time. A combination that, perhaps, he best
describes himself, 'perfect time, capture meter,
rhythm, complex verse & rhyme.... I am beat, you can
sing on key’ (Never Seems To Leave). On an initial
listen, it seems that, for the first half of the
record at least, Tree by Leaf are a little too
earnest & tightly wrapped... By the second or third
time of asking, when you really begin to understand
where Soucy is coming from, a realisation dawns that
the joke is on the listener 'Join the melancholy
chorus, its sad, it's sad, we're awfully sad' is, in
fact, a piss take of massive proportions.  In Tree
By Leaf, Garrett Soucy has a perfect conduit for his
black humour and intriguing lyrics and in Garrett
Soucy we have a new writer of whom we must sit up
and take notice. 'Rupert Sheldrake’s Favorite' and
'Regardless of the Cost' are as good as anything I
have heard all year (& beyond) and, taken as a
whole, Of the Black & he Blue suggest a band with
unbridled potential, merely a lucky break away from
not just a privileged few like me being aware of it.
www.treebyleaf.org.