Fruitful Earth // Rising Sun (Big Peach Records)

It’s great how some music can take you away if you focus hard enough. You get lost and imagine yourself being at different spots, living your own adventure, right in your head. Especially when an album takes me to my favourite city ever. That’s exactly what The Fruitful Earth’s latest does. Smoky, classic 70s rock, influenced by bluesy lyrics and pace, with some good ol’ country to boot. An album that would serve greatly as the soundtrack of London. A lot of bands struggle with the discussion of where they want to lay the emphasis. On music, or vocals? The Fruitful Earth, however, don’t seem to have this problem at all. The music gets enforced by the lyrics, whilst the vocals get more emotional because of the music. Complementary creativity. Shifting music, shifting pace, shifting emotions and even shifting feet make it hard to remain static on this album. The lively song ‘Honey Bee’ changes its pace extremely fluently using the dexterity of the piano, while ‘Love’ is a masterly crafted sing-along ballad. Each track is totally different from the previous one, which results in a very enjoyable album. Sarah Blair, lead singer of the band, has proven she can handle her piano as smoothly as the music she gets out of it. Assisted by a (bass) guitar and a good ol’ set of drums, she has created a sometimes rainy, sometimes sunny album that changes its colour as quickly as the weather. Creative and diverse, just as we like it.****

8/10 Yarreth Plysier