Album Review: The Road Home

The warm, familiar feeling of serenity surrounded me as I was listening to the newly released album by the incredible Paper Cranes titled The Road Home. I had previously reviewed this band and have been a devoted fan since so when the opportunity to review this album was presented to me I had to take it! Paper Cranes 折り鶴 are a 2 piece acoustic/indie folk outfit rising from the lands of Auckland, New Zealand. I have to honestly say, It’s music like this that makes me feel proud to call myself a Kiwi and be part of the incredible scene we have here.

I’ve been so eager to listen to this album the whole week but haven’t found the perfect opportunity, until tonight when I decided to listen to the CD as I cooked then ate some home made Thai green curry. The first thing that I noticed after I pressed play is a familiar series of chords and sounds which resulted in being the song Little Darling, The song by Paper Cranes that essentially made me fall for their output in the first place so it was great to hear a beautiful re-make. As the album progresses I continue to find more things about this record that I very much enjoy. I have to point out the song titled Stones, Birds & Aces which showed me their diverse range of sounds and genres they have when writing music. This is something I felt lacked a little in their previous album titled Oh Love! but made up for it live. This song Is very upbeat and flowy with some big sounding drums and various percussive instruments with some nice overdriven acoustic guitars all sitting behind one of the more interesting vocal melodies I’ve heard on this album, I especially like how the vocals are used with a short slap echo much like the effects used on vocals in 50’s rock ’n’ roll and rockabilly.

At this point I’d like to actually point out to anyone listening to take special notice in not only the great instrumentation but also in the poetry in this album I particularly like the closing lyrics in the song Runaway as the cranes sing “All Of the time we’ve been trying to find, A little escape, pulling the mat, Out from the feet of the bureaucrats, Who just talk of money as if it’s all that”. I also the lyrics in the chorus of the song Trouble Is which is probably my favourite song on the album along with Little Darling and Come, Sweet Sleep. Fraser & Naomi both harmonise the chorus to Trouble Is singing the lyrics: “The trouble I was blind before I could see, And I was someone else before I was me, the trouble is I was lost before I won, And I gave up before I began.” These lyrics are amongst the main reasons why I love this song along with it’s instrumentation which seemed to be a common impression I had listening to The Road Home. Of course with both Fraser and Naomi being two very talented multi-instrumentalists, a lot of instruments were used in the making of this album.

Overall I would say that the experience of this album was quite refreshing and delightful. This album has a wide range of sounds and styles that I simply never got bored. I enjoyed the dynamics reaching from very slow-paced acoustic ambience to fast pace, full-band upbeat music. Also I salute the engineers from Roundhead Studios for doing an excellent job recording this album. I couldn’t find anything I didn’t like about this album, I’ve listened to the whole thing a few times now and the more I listen to it the more I find myself appreciating it and it’s aesthetics 

I would completely recommend this album to anyone who loves listening to some nicely done Kiwi acoustic Indie/folk.

Rodrigo