Think you’re bored of bearded folk now? Meet James Vincent McMorrow, Dublin’s should-be success story.
His second single, ‘Sparrow & The Wolf’, due out on June 19th and taken from his already released and darkly beautiful debut album Early in the Morning, is probably as good a reason as any that James deserves your ears. It’s an arrestingly sing along fable of a track, with a suitably curious video and a chorus you’d have to be without a heart to deny and an energy and enthusiasm which is often missing from less deserving folkers.
The rest of Early in the Morning is in a similar soulful vein, with first single ‘The Old Dark Machine’ – heavily promoted by the Radio 1 propaganda machine – a wonderfully multilayered and atmospherically rustic highlight.
The ease with which McMorrow takes to the mythic genre is misleading; his musical life began playing drums to the likes of At The Drive In and Glassjaw, until a love of Donny Hathaway’s ‘I Love You More Than You Will Ever Know’ set him on the singer-songwriter path. It’s a bloody good thing it did, as well.
