Fine Bloom

Free the Honey is a quartet that plies its trade with a tight-knit, nearly telepathic ease. Jenny Hill (vocals, fiddle, mandolin, guitar), Lizzy Plotkin (vocals, fiddle, guitar), Katherine Taylor (vocals, guitar, banjo) and Andrew Cameron (upright bass) sound like a family that grew up playing together. Fine Bloom, the Colorado-based group's debut album, showcases a finely honed blending of styles spanning traditional folk, Western swing, jazz, blues, gospel – even mad dashes of klezmer and Gypsy – to create a beautifully balanced palette of songs. Lyrical themes inspired by home life, natural landscapes, personal relationships and spiritual yearning are rendered all the more poignant by distinctively appealing voices, especially when they’re singing in two- and three-part harmony. Highlights include ‘Dark and Muddy,’ a swinging groove punctuated by a scat-singing break and sweetly expressive riffing on fiddle and bass. Plotkins’ Yiddish musical inclinations are wonderfully expressed on ‘Wabbit Time’ by guest clarinettist Margot Leverett of the original Klezmatics. ‘Vultures,’ a moody rumination on the circle of life, moves from rueful blues to fanciful jig and then to soulful chant in the space of three and a half minutes. The last of 13 tunes, ‘Come Up to the Mountain,’ gives full flower to Free the Honey's vocal prowess in a gospel-esque a capella tribute to the healing power of nature.