Fish Records - MARK ERELLI AND JEFFREY FOUCAULT

Full Review

Jeffrey Foucault & Mark Erelli – Seven Curses

Long time friends and collaborators, Mark & Jeff have put together a fantastically atmospheric and beautifully recorded collection of American songs that can all be classed as murder ballads.
‘Seven Curses’ feel like a natural extension of Jeff’s solo album ‘Shoot the Moon’ in that it’s recorded almost live, and dripping in atmosphere, and it’s that presence that makes this an immediately arresting disc .

These 12 songs are from a host of classic American writers ranging from Woody Guthrie, Springsteen, and Neil Young through to Porter Wagoner – and they’re all given a superb work-over by Erelli & Foucault with a simple but deceptively rich mixture of acoustic and electric guitars, slide guitar, harmonica and mandolin.

They’re both distinct voices on the singer/songwriter scene, here they share the lead vocals across the disc and have a unique harmony style that is full of unusual arrangements but that always works and suits the song.

For an album full of songs of love, and inevitably, death, the album is not quite a downbeat as you might imagine, Springsteen’s ‘Johnny 99’ is a real rocker, Wagoner’s ‘The First Mrs Jones’ is comically dark, and ‘Sonora’s Death Row’ is a classic contemporary Western ballad and a masterpiece of songwriting in any genre, presented by Jeff and Mark here it feels a little darker than other versions.

Recorded over two nights, this is a fairly raw disc, but it’s presented by two of the strongest contemporary artists around – both great vocalists and musicians, ‘Seven Curses’ shows the power of their performing and interpretation and is destined to be a classic in the genre. Unmissable

MARK ERELLI AND JEFFREY FOUCAULT - SEVEN CURSES

Mark Erelli And Jeffrey Foucault