ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Finding a place in the crossover between commercial radio and quality folk is a difficult endeavour. Filled to the brim with easy-listening folk songs, Vance Joy’s debut albumDream Your Life Awaysuccessfully accomplishes this tricky feat.

Following the hugely popular ‘Riptide’, Dream Your Life Away is one of the most anticipated albums of the year. Thankfully, it lives up to expectations. It works as an album due to its simplicity: each track is reduced to its core components of melody, vocals and lyrics. Any addition to this, like the brass in ‘We All Die Trying To Get It Right’, is a carefully considered supplement to this balance.

Essentially, this is the album everyone in the family will agree to listen to on a long car drive. But it’s not without flaws. ‘First Time’is upbeat and catchy, but is far below the standard of the rest of the record. Thankfully, though, album highlights ‘Red Eye’, ‘Georgia’ and single ‘Mess Is Mine’ get the album well and truly back on track. Closer ‘My Kind Of Man’is splendid – a fitting end to the album and one of Joy’s best tunes to date, possibly heralding a newfound maturity.

4/5.

Dream Your Life Awayis out now through Liberation.

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