Review: Finian McKean - Monsters Of The Deep Woods
Posted on 10 February 2008 | 1 Comment
We here at Can You See the Sunset? have been fans of Finian McKean since we first heard his 2005 album Shades Are Drawn. His latest album Monsters Of The Deep Woods is (again) full of varied and ragged influences but easily one-ups its predecessor. On …Deep Woods McKean is like a snake in the long summer grass. He’s begging for the lurking farmer not to catch him but also just waiting for his moment to strike. His songs are simultaneously comforting and alarming. McKean’s simple but haunting songs come in many shapes and sizes; psychedelic blues tunes, swampy electrified garage rock, and psych-folk and they all have an unsettling and almost spiritual quality about them as if McKean is harnessing (or harnessed by) some higher power.
Much of …Deep Woods is sparse and (at times) dirge-like even when it gets loud and raucous. If McKean’s from porch is a sidewalk curb, his songs echo and reverberate not only in McKean’s (and the listener’s) head, but also throughout New York City’s vast chrome canyons, past the street lights, and into some dark back alley. It makes you question your own inner thoughts. …Deep Woods is a great album and is so because there is a sinister feel to it that is really really unsettling (I think that’s the perfect word). Sure, he uses piano, guitars, banjos, and other typical instrumentation, but McKean is anything but typical.
It is almost as if Finian McKean is confronting his own inner demons on …Deep Woods and begging you to do the same. It’s the perfect soundtrack for killing a man, digging a hole, and…well you know the rest. Monsters Of The Deep Woods is out now is available through And Each For Only Recordings.
MP3 | Finian McKean – I Could Drink All Nite Monsters…
MP3 | Finian McKean – Dropping Roses Monsters…
Filed Under: Album Reviews, Americana, Folk
Comments
It came from the nineties (Vol. 4) My daughter is sick but Kanye and Daft Punk are too
xoxo finian