The Head and The Heart: Let’s Be Still

The Head and The Heart
Let’s Be Still
(Sub Pop)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

In 2011, Seattle’s The Head and The Heart captured an impressive number of hearts and ears via their self-funded, self-recorded, self-titled debut. They sold 10,000 copies of the album before even signing with Sub Pop, and afterward, became one of the label’s fastest selling debuts. Given that the Billboard charts continue to stack up with like-minded earnest, folky Americana recordings — certainly the first time in decades a trend of this sort has been so dominant — the band arrived at exactly the right time. With a bigger budget to work with and broader goals in mind, The Head and The Heart ride that momentum into a more ambitious, yet still warmly organic second album, Let’s Be Still.

Sometimes the results of their bigger-budget approach are quite stunning, as on the slow build and gentle roll of album standout “Josh McBride,” which features guest vocals by fellow Seattle singer-songwriter Brian John Appleby. And sometimes the results are an awkward fit, like “Summertime,” which seems to pluck a dated, mid-‘80s keyboard patch sound and shoehorn it into one of the band’s characteristic indie folk pluckers. Yet the distance between these extremes isn’t terribly vast, the band ping-ponging between Mumford-ized stompers like “Shake” and gorgeous country-rock ballads like “Cruel.” It’s in the latter when the band is at their best, their warmly gentle approach a much more natural fit than the makeshift hootenannies they sometimes engage in. And it’s only natural to want to get those feet stomping and hands clapping. But it’s unnecessary; what The Head and The Heart do best are ballads, even if they can’t help themselves from venturing into other arenas now and again.