Highly regarded Canadian folkies continue to impress with album number seven.
Formed in 2005, Canadian folkies The Fugitives have, over the subsequent eleven years, garnered themselves quite a reputation for delivering memorable live shows full of infectious energy. The band’s most recent video, Holy Strength, was showcased on these pages a few weeks ago, and the sheer verve their music broadcasts was writ large. The video was a teaser ahead of the band’s eponymously titled seventh album, and, for those unfamiliar with The Fugitives, it is a perfect scene-setter for the album.
Holy Strength is one of a trio of similarly paced songs that open the album. That this is a band that has honed its musicianship to a fine art over those preceding years stands out immediately. This is a tight band. Sometimes prominently, at other times in a more subtle fashion, the combination of harmonies aligned with first-rate playing is the common thread that pulls this all together. The violin of Carly Frey and Christopher Suen’s banjo warrant particular mention. When the band is in full-on mode, their interventions remain notable, but it is when the songs are pared back a tad that these contributions really shine.
For all of the album’s opening energy, it is about halfway in that it really kicks up a gear. River Hymn does not up the tempo in any way, just the opposite in fact. This meanders in the way that a river will, and that aforementioned banjo here plays that role to perfection. When Frey’s violin joins the party, the haunting melancholy of the song is complete. Perhaps it is the fact that the track is such an outlier to what has gone before that makes it memorable, but, for whatever reason, the album is elevated from this point on.
Young Enough follows, and the strength of the band’s harmonies is particularly highlighted here in a beautifully performed, gentle ballad. As An Ending raises the bar still higher. Rather like that river, there is a mellow flow to the song and, for fear of labouring the point, Suen’s banjo reprises its ever-present thread, and the violin that brings the track home is glorious. The album closes with Window Open, where a restrained opening builds to a glorious crescendo featuring brass that brings The Delines to mind. That the track builds to such a peak seems fitting for an album that very much does the same thing. The Fugitives are multi-award winners in their native Canada, and this new album will do nothing but add to that hard-earned reputation for excellence.
