(2021) Evan Cheadle - Fault Line Serenade


Review:
…Evan Cheadle’s debut full-length is a staggering collection of hazy and fragile songs, adorned with the finest of baroque and psychedelic flourishes. Written between several years of touring as a member of Canadian stalwarts The Deep Dark Woods, Fault Line Serenade builds upon Cheadle’s 2018 EP, and recalls greats like Bill Fay or Gene Clark and more contemporary earthy travellers like Josephine Foster or Jacco Gardner. Across the album’s unhurried 12 songs, Cheadle’s nimble wordplay and pinpoint phrasing is nestled among a bustle of instrumentation — fingerpicked guitars, buoyant strings, glistening pedal steel, Mellotron, and more. Its imagery and sound as vibrant and dappled as the landscape of Cheadle’s Vancouver Island home, Fault Line Serenade is a remarkably consistent listen throughout, though it’s bookended by a pair of especially standout tracks that anchor the album. ”No Love Lost” brings Neil Young’s “Vampire Blues” into the daylight for an eye-opening walkabout, while “Float On Down the Line” is a twisting digital single originally from 2019 that perfectly anticipated what would follow — all stuttering drums, twisting guitar lines, and thrumming strings. This is pastoral music untethered from its roots (be they musical, the natural world, or beyond) — the perfect companion for a world just beginning to heal and reckon with itself.





Track Listing:
1.No Love Lost  04:08
2.Sorrow In The Morning  03:04
3.I Hear The Singing  07:06
4.Joker  03:16
5.Ice Water  04:21
6.Some Fool  05:10
7.First Morning Light  02:16
8.All Sing Out  03:08
9.Fumes  03:03
10.Look Out  02:26
11.So Wild  04:20
12.Float On Down The Line  03:03


Media Report:
Genre: folk-rock, indie-folk
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits