Tin Drum Family Band 2023
Emerson Street
Ambrosian album from a lockdown foursome whose telepathy is transcendentally infectious.
Kids are an irritating kind of people yet you can’t help but love your brats, especially once the children begin to share your passions. Perhaps, that was what allowed Burleigh Drummond and Mary Harris, they of TIN DRUM and AMBROSIA fame, to get through the pandemic-imposed confinement, when the couple got stuck within four walls with grown-up scions Micky and Sierra nearby, without inflicting bodily harm on each other. Instead, the four accumulated their pent-up energies to create an impressive array of songs which run the gamut from folk to pop to gospel and pull on the listener’s soul-strings effortlessly enough to make those eager to lend an ear feel like a part of the little ensemble’s extended clan.
And how can one not feel this way if hypnotic opener “I Fall Down” finds the patriarch’s crystal clear voice and acoustic strum joined by warm harmonies from the entire family and driven by his heir’s tabla before the delicate shards of Marc Bonilla’s guitar and Ms. Harris’ Hammond riffs lift the ballads out of the initial lull – echoed in the enchanting finale of “My Sweet Lullaby” – to see Mary take the lead and proceed into her own upbeat “Hold On” where feistiness and defiance reign. And it’s her motherly spirituality that, after son’s countrified reverie of “Bring Your Body” and daughter’s vaudevillian swagger of “The Deep End” – each youngster presiding over their individual piece – direct the drift down to earth, shapes the stunning chamber flight of “Hummingbird” which requires no household input to expose the vulnerable magnificence of her piano-accompanied vocals. Yet while the female half of the quartet deliver “Walk Of Life” with a similar orchestral elegance, Sierra will step forward for the pastiche and panache of “Mom” and ruminative “Signs” as well as vibrant, ska-scented “Silk” and her brother will inject quiet rapture into “Never Far From Home” and drama into the gradually gripping “Salt Creek” which engage even more relatives.
And why not, given the Drummonds are so welcoming one would want to visit their abode and and taste their hospitality?
*****
