Review Summary: Cardamom in my coffee in the morning
If you’re lucky, you can get across something like this once in a while. Weyes Blood is a folk musician based in New York, perhaps best known for her virtuous voice, “somehow liturgical” as some might say. The singer-songwriter released her latest full-length album The Innocents late 2014, while Cardamom Times is an EP released an year later. With her style, she draws comparisons to Perfume Genius, Simon & Garfunkel but also Vashti Bunyan and Fairport Convention. With such an artist like Weyes Blood nostalgic themes seem to never get weary. Soulfulness and competence really manages to take you “there”. “Maybe Love”, first song of the EP, is a swingy tale about uncertainty, quite similar to what she has done before on The Innocents. “Take You There” ,at 7:40, is the longest track here, and, perhaps, the most cathartic, with a departed feeling. “Cardamom Times” comes as the theme and title track. What are those Cardamom Times? It’s perhaps a time of mystery, a refuge for the dreamers in a modern world, or just an important period in time characterized by the heavy use of cardamom in the coffee.. First uncertainty, then journey, and then destination.
The Innocents was mainly concerned with topics like nature and the passing of the seasons, but here, on this EP, these themes have really matured, taken a different shape, condensed within a more traditional approach to folk, resembling the ‘70s acts. She seems more focused on time and time’s effect on our senses,our tendency to lose memories. She has proven herself before, but this one truly takes you to that magic place.
The final track “In the Beginning”, is led by her marvelous voice and the lonely guitar:
I'm still learning to be free and not so somber.
Every night I stay up a little longer
searching on that field of stars.
