Review: The Milk Carton Kids

Prologue

By The Milk Carton Kids

Impression:  While the band hails from LA, the music they produce sounds like it comes straight out of the hills of West Virginia.  With only the use of a guitar and their voices, the duo weaves folksy ballads reminiscent of Woody Guthrie.  For the most part, the freshman album is relatively slow and melancholy but ends on a high note with "I Still Want a Little More."  The lyrics are thoughtful and carefully written and the harmonies are perfect -- at moments, the voices are amplified in a multi-tonal wave of sound, underscoring the inherent beauty of the human voice.  The guitar is skillfully played, using a fingerpicking style rather than strumming -- in this way, the listener is hearing actual notes instead of chords, which provides a nice contrast to the harmonizing in the vocals.

If I had money, I would buy:  "Michigan" and perhaps, "I Still Want a Little More"....Folk music is one of the genres my ear isn't particularly tuned into--the only folk artist I've gotten into is Joni Mitchell.  Though, I enjoyed the music, but I'm not sure it's something I would listen to on repeat and I didn't feel the album is diverse enough to warrant buying in it's entirety.

Sounds Like:  Folk-tinged Americana