Albums

Album Review: The Storys

Album: Town Beyond The Trees
Label: Hall Recordings

With their debut rightly acclaimed and subsequent high-profile gigs with the likes of Elton John and Katie Melua behind them, The Storys release their much anticipated second album ‘Town Beyond The Trees’.

Opening track ‘Long Hard Road’ is the purest form of easy-listening Americana country rock music. It’s Billy Joel, The Eagles, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young all rolled into one with gently-strummed guitar chords ballooning out into resonating solo with slide bar mewing. The soft, comforting slightly-croaked vocal of Steve Balsamo is heavily-accented with Yankee twang and brings to mind Don Henley and to some extent Jon Bon Jovi.

It‘s followed by ‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’ which introduces a slower much-less anachronistic sound with surprising pop sensibilities and only now is it apparent that this lot are actually rooted in South Wales - Swansea, to be precise. It’s the mandolin of Alan Thomas that eventually gives it all away along with Balsamo’s ability to drop that formulaic accent to something far more complex and fresh.

The band continue to switch between upbeat country and downbeat pop throughout the rest of the album with apparent ease. It’s a surprising mixture and certainly each number is impeccably structured with plenty of memorable lyrics - spot the Madonna smash-and-grab on ‘Trouble Deep’ - making them instantly accessible. Whether there is an audience for a sound that’s very much rooted in the past will make or break them. Which it will be is unclear but they are certainly compiling quite a catalogue of favourable reviews and if it doesn’t happen here in the UK then it doesn’t take a genius to imagine them doing well across the pond.

For fans of: The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Grandaddy
Band links = The Storys

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Tags: album, cd, storys, town beyond the trees, review, eagles, billy joel, country, rock

John’s review also appears in Music-Zine.

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