Outside, the Great Drought

Product Description

First Hyena LP.  agh, here’s what the Wire said,
“I’ve often wondered why more groups don’t sound like Comus. Their combination of jangly folk, wheezy medieval wind, cunning-man vocals and proto-funk strut is one of the 20th century music’s greatest musical inventions. East Coast multi-instrumentalist Colby Nathan is one of the few brave enough to step up to the boots and try them on for size; finding them roomy, he tops them up with Hounds Of Love-style dram-glamour (which includes double bass, fiddle, bassoon, flute and cello) through a series of mutant folk ideas that peak, each time, in a bashy torch-song chorus: “Salutations” has a shanty feel, with skiffle board percussion and mariachi horns; “Portraits” is doo-wop, trimmed with Andean flutes; and so on. The heart-on-sleeve melodicism of the writing sometimes threatens mawkishness, but is mostly kept on point by Colby’s voice, a witchy, androgynous mezzo.” issue 340 June 2012