The Cedar Sound

Straight to business today. No hanging about. Still means it will probably take me about hour and a half to do this. I’m slow like that. Anyway; The Cedar Sound are a relatively new americana folk band. They formed at the start of this year and have been developing their sound since. The band are made up of the lads: Robbie Dunne (Guitar), Paul McMahon (lead Guitar), Baz Walshe (Bass) and Jim O'Donoghue (Drums). Just like the The Viking Project whom I featured recently, three-quarters of the band sing with Robbie taking lead vocals. Again the presence of a few singers in a band adds so much to the presence of the songs. The band was formed on the back of Robbie returning to Dublin after living in Chicago for four years where he got to experience native americana music directly. Lucky man.

As the band is not even a year old yet, there is not too many studio tracks available. However there is an impressive number of demo tracks on soundcloud and two other tracks available on the breaking tunes page. Of those full band tracks "West Coast Wishes" is my favourite. In many ways America is one of the most romantic places to sing songs about. This song features the west coast as well as mentioning Nashville Tennessee. I imagine writing a song about leaving west coast of Ireland and taking the M6 wouldn't create the same feelings of vastness, loneliness and romanticism. (Let's say nothing about the N17 here).A simmering but gentle melody on life's woes.

My favourite off the soundcloud page is "Yankee Highway Blues". Again it keeps in nicely with that travelling theme of "West Coast Wishes". The song has just the right balance, strumming guitar providing the momentum for the song with the perfectly placed guitar licks and harmonica adding to that sense of coasting along on the highway.

The band hopes to release an ep before the year’s end. I am looking forward to hearing some of these tracks recorded with the full band. You can keep updated with them via the Facebook. The Soundcloud page has four of the bands tracks, all available to download. Or if you are more of a visual person, there is always the Youtube.