The Clements Brothers
Dandelion Breeze
Plow Man Records
25 August 2023
The Clement Brothers hail from New England and feature identical twins George (guitar) and Charles (upright bass); they are joined by drummer Mike Harmon, sharing lead vocals. Dandelion Breeze is their first project together since leaving grass-roots outfit The Lonely Heartstring Band, blending a mix of roots, rock, bluegrass, jazz, and classic influences.
George on lead and featuring Brooks Milgate on piano and accordion, they open in strummed downbeat mood with the emotional rescue-themed love song Help Myself (“When you came to me I was on the mend/Still chasing shadows in an aching head/But you showed me love and you gave me care/And with your open arms/You turned my tired sighs into moonlight prayers”). Again with George on lead, they pick up the tempo with Jenna Moynihan providing fiddle on the train rhythm chugging folksy Morning Train with its leaving the city, waiting on a change of sentiment.
In the first of three five-minute numbers, Charles takes over for the slow strummed self-penned close harmony title track, which, with Rich Hinman on pedal steel, reflects on paths taken (“We picked up the holy then married young/Laid down our roots where the money had sprung/And some Friday nights we’d sing lullabies/Yeah we made the most of the light/Dreaming at day jobs then draining the wine”) and those that lie ahead (“This life we’re living was made to be free/Let’s go out and shine with the sun/‘Cause the things that we’re missing/We’ll find while we’re drifting/On a dandelion breeze”).
He sings lead on two further self-penned tracks, first up being Hello Daniel which, with Milgate on piano and Abigail Reisman on violin and evocative of Bookends-era Paul Simon, is a reconnection through song with an old friend and fellow musician whose been through troubled times (“Do you remember our trip to Southern Illinois?/That great state of contradictions and all American boys/Yeah the place you learned to feed your demons/And pray a storm of joys… then you crashed my car/In the home stretch snow/On some forgotten street on Staten Island while I was sleepin’ stoned/And I forgave you cause I knew your burdens/Were greater than my own/It was clearly so/So I hope you’re a brand new baby/With shining eyes/Just biding your time to make your comeback”). It ends with a bittersweet valediction: “I hope you burned out bright with a pen in your hand/Writing poems on a napkin visions of your native land/Where jesters play on harps and angels sing in punk rock bands”.
Drawing a similar comparison, the other, on which he plays the flugelhorn and George the tenor sax, is the late-night soft bluesy strings arranged Call It A Night, a snapshot of strangers crossing paths in the city (“I hear you humming a tune/Under brake noise and steel on the rails/I say ‘these sounds soothe my mind’ and you laugh with your eyes/And say, ‘It’s one I been working on/For train tracks and voice’”) and of a tentative connection between drifting souls (“She says, ‘My stop’s up in two/Maybe we should hop off and/Grab a coffee or three/Cause it beats being lonely and I just tossed my TV/And I like how you look when you look in my eyes/Yah, I think we should call it a night’”).
Aside from the fingerpicked, jazzy instrumental As The Crow Flies with Moynihan’s fiddle and Harmon on bouzouki, the remaining originals are all co-writes. Give Me A Sign is a choppy acoustic blues with classic Laurel Canyon DNA (“I know I wasn’t around/Chasing a worn out dream/But now we’re talking in riddles darlin’/Just tell me what you need/Well I know we’re never gonna change this/If we’re drownin’ in jealousy/Yeah I know we’re gonna have to take a breath sometime/And I know you’re never gonna save me”).
Carrying hints of Dancing In The Dark, driven by another choppy bassline rhythm and a catchy poppy chorus, Out Of The Blue again touches on love as healing (“She was the only child/From a runaway bride/She hid a secret in her Mona Lisa smile/But she had a light I’d never seen/And I was stuck between/What my friends all said I need/And a vision like a feverish dream…It’s just the more that I want you/The less I feel of this ache inside/I think this feeling holds a healing/For the pain you carry too”).
Again with bouzouki and pedal steel, the slower fingerpicked Never Alone is a more ruminative countrified ballad that mingles traces of Simon and Jimmy Webb (“And when my nights got dark, breaking down/You were just a call away/So I’ll listen for the words you used to say/You’re never alone/You don’t have to turn to face your shadows on your own/I know you’ll find your way back home/To face the silence of your soul”). It’s a surprise then that, given the late 60s comparisons and influences evident throughout, they end with a Kurt Cobain cover, Charles laying down a double bass walking rhythm for a hypnotic take on All Apologies that recasts Nirvana as the Everlys, a terrific conclusion to an album that unassumingly and softly seeps into your soul and stakes its claim as one of the year’s best debuts.
https://www.theclementsbrothers.com/