Thursday, January 1, 2009

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson - Rattlin' Bones

Here it is, my feeble, possibly futile attempt to get my arms around a ton of tunes and pick out the highlights. I will in no way say that the picks I make are the "best" of the year past. Instead, these are the albums that stood out to me from the sampling of music that I have collected.

So with that [useless] disclaimer aside here is the first of my cream of the crop picks.

Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson - Rattlin' Bones
Rattlin' Bones album coverImage via WikipediReleased April 21, 2008 on Liberation Records

This one really flew under my radar this year. I was trying to put together a 2008 year in review show for the Front Porch and I was perusing various blogs to see if I had missed anything. I can't remember the blog that pointed me to this album but what a great turn.

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson are a husband and wife duo from Australia. For this album they offer up a pop/folk/country/bluesy sound that oddly enough has an Appalachian feel at times. The album plays intimate throughout no matter the pulse of the beat delivering 14 original tunes that are interesting a delivered impeccably well.

This album is definitely in the top tier of Americana albums released this year.