The Road to Berryville

It’s a rare album that grabs you with every track, but Appalachian quartet Furnace Mountain have managed it with The Road to Berryville. The beguiling vocals of Aimee Curl and Morgan Morrison and rippling melodies of guitar, mandolin, bouzouki and fiddle come together in a beautifully crafted piece. Recorded over two days with an in-studio audience, the album has a relaxed and playful feel to it that belies the studio setting; it feels more like a lively intimate gig.

As we are taken for a wander along the road to Berryville (a town in Clarke County, Virginia), we are treated to some superbly dextrous string picking and fiddling in tunes like ‘Virginia Girls/Sandy Boys’ and ‘Millwood Boyce’. ‘Fol De Rol’ demonstrates Furnace Mountain’s ability to create and resolve tension via satisfying troughs and peaks while the mellower tone of ‘Thrown by the Bull’ complements the more frisky and skittish tunes with its air of melancholy. As the mood of the album follows its own twists and turns the energy stays fierce throughout and signals a band that plans to stick around a while. Here’s hoping they do.