Dry the River - Shallow Bed
BY BURAK ŞAHİN (IR/IV)
burak_s@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
I checked out Dry the River for the first time in late 2010 after reading Paul Lester's article in The Guardian. He referred to this band as the new-generation "Mumford & Sons" and listed some similarities between the bands. When I listened to Dry the River's second EP, "Bible Belt," Peter Liddle's voice captured me right from the beginning. He has a unique and harmonic voice, and the tracks themselves were totally above average, too. "Weight and Measures" and "Shaker Hymns" deserved to be listened to over and over again. After getting acquainted with the band, I kept on discovering more and began waiting for their forthcoming projects.
The London band described their own music as "folky gospel music played by a post-punk band." Their songs exhibit an emotional quality with acoustic guitar, touching lyrics, Liddle's voice and, sometimes, the violin. "I think people are surprised when they come to see us live. They expect us to be really calm and quiet but in some ways we're the opposite," says Peter Liddle, the band's heavily tattooed frontman. After receiving the support of Sony, they could claim to have become a more successful, well-known band and continued to take bigger steps toward fame in the music world.
Many music magazines started to write about them, and Dry the River appeared at many music festivals across Europe. A new single, "New Ceremony," released in March 2011, helped them gain worldwide recognition. In addition, they were listed in BBC Sound of 2012 and released their third EP, "Weights and Measures," in November 2011. Their next mission was a studio album, with all its pressures, but apparently this excitement wasn't enough for them. The band put up posters in London to advertise their debut album, and provided people a chance to listen to songs from the album using tin-can telephones.
Finally, one of the most anticipated albums of the year (for me, at least), "Shallow Bed," was released
on March 5, including the band's well-known songs as well as some new material. It's hard to sum up the whole album in a few words. Neil McCormick from The Telegraph did his best to describe the album and the band's sound: "They are a big canvas band making folk rock; a fusion of the accessible pastoral pop of Mumford & Sons with the epic electric soundscapes of Radiohead. But when he drops to the fragile intimacy of an acoustic guitar, singer Peter Liddle's choirboy tenor evokes the tender melancholy of Nick Drake while the group harmonies swell with the sacred hush and precision of 16th-century madrigals. The multi-instrumental band can gently rock or pitch in with the messianic melodrama of Arcade Fire."
"Shallow Bed" consists of 12 songs and a bonus track. Each song is like the chapter of a novel, with lots of images in the lyrics. "New Ceremony" starts with the line, "I used to be a king alone, like Solomon or Rehoboam," while "Shield Your Eyes" contains the words, "And the Phrygian Lion, With his excellent eyesight, At the gate of our love," a reference to the ancient Phrygian "Lion Gate" symbols that were located in Mesopotamia. Maybe Dry the River can't create excitement for everyone with their sound and lyrics like this, but the whole album as a package has to be counted as one of the best gifts of 2012 for those who agree with me. I was saying that the band totally deserved that "next great folk band" title, but, says their official website (http://www.drytheriver.net), "Don't call them the next great folk band. Just call them the next great band, full stop."