Carry Nation - Like A River Does

After spending several years honing her craft alongside the likes of Darren Hanlon, Laura Jean, and Megan Washingston, Brisbane singer-songwriter Carry Nation (aka Jessie Warren) has released her debut LP 'Like A River Does' to nation-wide praise.

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Carry Nation is no secret to Brisbane audiences, having plied her trade for the past four years in a city predisposed to the folk and roots scene. With artists such as her label-mate Tom Cooney coming out of that circuit, it's no surprise then that she has now gotten around to putting her voice on record and distributed it to widespread praise; praise that I'm more than happy to echo in this review.

From the opening picked notes of Carry Nation's debut, 'Like a River Does,' you are drawn into a world of sleepy tranquillity; a world of wonder and depth that allows you to float throughout for its entirety. It's an incredibly well-formed atmosphere that takes what are essentially simple guitar based melodies and lends them a special quality that allows Carry Nation to step through the sea of female singer-songwriters and be noticed. Tracks like 'Moving Out' and 'Nothing Is For Ever' are illustrative of this dichotomy, where high note guitar plucking sits atop a rich array of strings, horns and percussion in an impressively mature and beautiful arrangement. It's a sound that seems to have been worked on concurrently and independently of Angus & Julia Stone's latest album 'Down the Way,' both of which feature similar strings arrangements, but are entirely distinct and unique albums.

In essence, the sound built on 'Like A River Does' is classical folk music for a modern audience, in a similar vein to what Holly Throsby has worked on throughout her past few releases. In fact, this could almost be a Holly Throsby album. Jessie Warren's voice is hauntingly similar to Throsby's, to the point where you could play it to a devoted Throsby fan and their only comment would be 'oh wow, I've never heard her with a slide guitar before." It can be hard to totally discredit an album based off vocal similarities, and I don't think it's possible to do so for a fine release such as this, but there's enough familiarity to have you second guessing the list of players in the liner notes.

Despite the many Throsby-esque moments throughout the album (which are certainly not unwelcome,) there's enough uniqueness to have you sticking this album into your chosen playback medium whenever you're in the mood for something laid back. Carry Nation has released a debut that is almost guaranteed to please anyone with an ear for the chilled and wispy tones of the female singer-songwriter. If you enjoyed the couple of tracks we put up with this review, then I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the album as a whole.

'Like A River Does' is out now through Inertia Distribution on El Nino El Nino Records.