Peerless influences, great songs and a voice that could melt an iceberg. For Melbourne band Blue Windows, the sky is the limit.
Release Date: Out Now
Label: Self Release
Formats: CD / Digital
A SECRET AND HIGHLY POTENT WEAPON
They hail from the Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri territories that surround Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay in Victoria, south-East Australia, and their regular stomping grounds are the clubs of Geelong, Bellarine, The Surf Coast and Melbourne but, if there’s any justice whatsoever in this world, it won’t be long before the name Blue Windows is on the lips of everyone from San Francisco to Hong Kong and all ports in between.
Northern Sky is the second album from Blue Windows – it follows the band’s 2019 debut, Borders – and it’s a revelation.
Blue Windows are: Wendy Kenbeek (lead vocals, harmonica, ukulele and guitar), Paul Albone (guitars and backing vocals), Alex Gentle (bass) and Stuart Hinks (drums and backing vocals). The band’s stock in trade is a blend of folk, country, Americana and pop, but that brief summary doesn’t tell even half the story… Blue Windows have a secret and highly potent weapon – Wendy’s voice – one of the most potent instruments that you’ll encounter anywhere. Always rich and clear, she can be pleading, forceful, sleek or sleazy, but the word that came to me over and over again as I listened to Northern Sky was “Captivating.”
INFLUENCES
The band cite Jonathan Brooke, James Taylor and The Waifs as their principal influences and I’d add Neil Young to that list too; his ghost haunts the very grooves of Northern Sky, particularly in the structure of songs like Absence and Healing and in several of Wendy’s excellent harmonica solos. The band even took their name from a Neil Young lyric, as in “Blue, blue windows behind the stars,” from Neil’s 1971 song, Helpless.
FLUENT, SOLID AND SUBTLE
The band are fluent and solid, yet subtle, throughout Northern Sky, allowing the listener to enjoy Wendy’s stunning vocals to the fullest effect. They’re there, with some tasteful, tinkly guitar fills and a dependable bass and drum rhythm as Wendy sings of the challenges, the opportunities and the tribulations of travel, on the title track that opens the album and they simmer wonderfully as Wendy delivers a confidently smouldering vocal for the bluesy Backseat Driver. They can add jollity, too, as they demonstrate by sweetening Wendy’s breathy, bittersweet lyrics to their swipe at the politicians that have done little to address climate change, Place In The Sun.
I felt that I could detect hints of Diana Ross in Wendy’s vocals on the relaxed – and slightly sleazy (in a thrilling kind of way) – Never the Twain. Her voice is typically crystal-clear as she sings: “Wiser men than you and I have failed, so what if the one who stands out is nailed,” whilst Paul chips in a nifty acoustic guitar intro and a glorious solo.
PERFECTLY CRAFTED
“Perfectly crafted” was another term that came repeatedly to mind as I listened, and that’s a term that applies particularly to the sultry pop of Faultlines, a song in which Stuart’s light-touch drums and Paul’s funky electric guitar flourishes are all powered along by Alex’s fluid, jazzy bassline.
There’s more of a country feel to Absence, a slow-paced ballad in which Wendy assumes an intimate and vulnerable persona and the strummed acoustic guitars, the soaring pedal steel-alike electric guitar and, particularly, Wendy’s harmonica solo all evoke the spirit of Mr Young. Then, in a clear demonstration of their versatility, the band head in a doo-wop direction for Butterfly, a cute, likeable, song that is, indeed, light as… well – a butterfly.
YOU WON’T HAVE THEM TO YOURSELVES FOR MUCH LONGER…
It was whilst listening to Doing My Time, a brooding piano ballad that reminded me Carole King, that it occurred to me that the lucky folks of southern Victoria shouldn’t expect to have Blue Windows to themselves for very much longer. Although the song’s lyrics: “Don’t let the outside in, coz it could well bring you down and you may never win” are arguably the most pessimistic on the album, this is a faultless song – tuneful and engaging, with vocals and instrumentation in perfect accord.
Wendy delivers what may be her finest vocal performance of the lot on the joyful Tallulah. She accompanies herself on ukulele and the intimacy of the song’s opening bars are retained, even when the full band kick in. And, if I live to be 100, I don’t expect I’ll ever hear another song with a line that measures up to: “So I send you a postcard from Berlin, of a fat man eating a sausage.”
A BAROQUE ENDING
There’s a double-header of Paul’s smooth-as-silk guitar and a Wendy vocal that surges all the way from gentle contemplation to soaring balladry and back again to enjoy in the passionate Healing, before chiming guitars introduce Telling Stories, perhaps the album’s closest thing to a straight-ahead rock song. Guest Geoff Sampson’s organ provides the sweetening antidote to the rocky guitars and Wendy’s vocals are bright but restrained.
There’s a baroque feel to Flowers In Her Hand, the song that Blue Windows have chosen to conclude this mesmerizing album. Piano and (what sounds like) a mandocello combine deliciously and a discrete string arrangement completes the baroque mood but, as always, the spotlight is on Wendy as she delivers one last taste of that enchanting voice.
Blue Windows is a name to watch. Expect them to be breaking out from the Antipodes very, very soon.
Watch Blue Windows perform Northern Sky- the album’s title track – live at The Wesley Anne in Melbourne, here:
Blue Windows online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp
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