Customer Reviews

Spoon & Rafter

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been listening to "Spoon and Rafter" for about a week now and I feel like I know it well enough to write a review. The style of this album is a marked departure from their past two albums, "Out of Tune" and "Excuses for Travellers," which epitomized the sun-drenched, blissed-out countrified pop sound. "Spoon and Rafter" throws some piano-driven rhythms and more experimental production into the mix. Glockenspiel and restrained synths, first heard on Neil Halstead's solo album, are also included.

Starlight No. 1 is an amazing pop song with an infectious chorus. "All up Above" is a beautiful song and features some of Mojave 3's trademark slide guitar work. Thanks to this album, I believe I have found one of the most beautiful and haunting songs I have ever heard, "Hard to Miss You." The piano line and fragile production are incredible and must be heard. Overall, "Spoon and Rafter" finds Mojave 3 stepping outside of their traditional sound and the results are truly amazing. Buy this album, you owe it to yourself.

If you don't own this album, you are missing out. If you have nothing by Mojave 3, then you are really missing out. They are amazing musicians. FYI, buy this and the last 2, they are very similar. Here are some words that best describe this album. Earnest, Intimate, Calm/Peaceful, Gentle, Bittersweet, Plaintive, Reflective, Delicate. Trust me, if these words describe the kind of music you like, then I guarantee you will be 100% satisfied. If your looking for other Alt-country type stuff, check out the following bands: Bellwether (home late), Beachwood Sparks, The Tyde, Thad Cockrell, Hem, Holopaw, etc. Hope these get added to your collection.

Imagine a long stretch of highway heading into the sunset under a cool breeze signaling the change from summer's bountiful life to autumn's shortening days. Now imagine a soundtrack for this event. It would be anything from Mojave 3, especially this record. For some reason, this album brings about stirring reflections of landscape, longing, and escape. Theres a rare sound that is described as flowing, country, folkish, ambient, and hauntingly beautiful and sad.
The album starts with "Bluebird of happiness", which seems like more of an album closer than an album opener, which somehow is how I think they wanted it to take place. This song, a beautiful epic song about longing for peace, is pace setter for the rest of the album. The rest of the album flows along, with some very strong songs and a few not so strong, but the last two songs, "Too many mornings", and "Between the bars", perhaps are the best written songs on the album. But all songs are musically and lyrically excellent...just a step up from the awesome "Out of tune" cd, and very different from the extreme mellow "Ask me tomorrow". I am still relatively new with this band, but I can say their music is incredibly infectious, and the sound is definitely something I long for. No, this music is not depressing...but meaningful, and hopeful.
A must have cd, as is all cds by this artist. The mainstream has yet to find artists this sincerely talented...Perhaps thats what us real music lovers want...But its a shame not to share music this good to the world.

As always - haunting, bittersweet, retrospective, and unbearably beautiful. If you're a fan of Mojave 3, you'll love this album. I disagree with those who say this is their weakest album - after listening to it for months, I think these are their most beautiful songs to date. And I don't think Rachael Goswell has ever shined brighter. The highlights are Bluebird.., Starlight.., Between the bars, and my personal favourite Writing to St. Peter, a haunting and subtle song that takes your breath away once Rachel joins in on the chorus. A tragically underappreciated band.

OK, so the latest Mojave 3 album has no major stylistic differences from the previous ones. So what? Music as beautiful as this will remain in my library for as long as I can tell. Mojave 3/Neal Halstead have perfected the slow, langourous, late Saturday night/early Sunday morning music that I love. I feel great albums are defined by either evoking a moment, a genre, a movement perfectly or by offering a tremendous amount of diversity within the album itself. Mojave 3's albums all fall into the former category. I will forever associate Excuses for Travelers and Travling on Roads with driving through the canyons of Southeaster Utah on the way to the Needles district of Cayonlands. My hiking buddy, who had never heard Mojave 3 before, said the music was so perfectly suited for the early morning drive on a prolonged roadtrip was so perfect that he bought the album as soon as we got back to Albuquerque. Spoon and Rafter, while not quite on the level of Out of Tune, all of the albums are so close that it really does not matter which one you buy. Just buy it and put it in some cold Sunday morning and listen over coffee. Enjoy.

My Pick for Album of the Year.

I'm a sucker for this band. These guys aren't taking "the road less travelled" and as they produce more and more albums, they aren't showing any signs of regretting their choice. Where many groups change course and progress to new levels or new sounds throughout their career, Mojave 3 for the most part have remained true to their sound and audience in a very Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers type fashion. Though they're only slightly under the radar, they do have a very accessible and easy sound, and you can rely on them to keep that sound consistently from album to ablum. It is good after all, to have a few bands as cornerstones in an industry that is dominated by fad and hype. These guys simply don't play the type of music you'd expect to find in the limelight and is perhaps too simple and soft for media aggrandizement.

Spoon and Rafter is the logical follow-up album to "Excuses for Travellers," featuring the same sort of laid back, simplistic music along with Halstead's humble vocals. In general the album is a tad more upbeat than Mojave's previous efforts but still captures that overall soft and gentle quality that Mojave has always offered. The opening track "Bluebird of Happiness" is remarkable, and shifts from a melancholy chorus with very sparse, percussionless, stripped down music to a more upbeat central segment, followed by a return to the beginning melody. Track 6&7 "Hard to Miss You" and "Tinker's Blues" sound like they could have been taken directly from "Excuses." "Hard to Miss You" features a sober melody behind simply isolated vocals from Halstead and Goswell. "Tinker's Blues" reminds me a lot of "Return to Sender" in that it gains percussion about a minute of the way through and picks up after that. "Tinker's" also is one of the happier more upbeat tracks, but isn't quite the comic relief "Return to Sender" was on "Travellers."

I could review every song individually for you, but that wouldn't be any fun for everyone else, and it would require me to do a helluva lot more typing than I'm willing to do. This music isn't intensely deep or complex and doesn't try to be, although it's country accents (ala banjos, harmonicas, and steel guitars) do give it a neat if not quite unique sound. Calling it country is wholly innaccurate itself however, there's far more emotion in the music and it feels very sincere and exposed, or undressed if you will. It's very relaxing to listen to even if it is a little predictable.

Mojave 3 has been around for seven years and this is their fourth album. Cornwall native Neil Halstead did a solo record, Sleeping On Roads, last year, and it was received well. Much of their work is about lost love and emotional states. This expression has brought out the girls in search of a sensitive poet. Mojave 3 recorded this record during the last part of 2002. They have always been into roots rocks and Americana. They retreated to the cow pastures of Cornwall where they have a studio. Most of the band now live in London. This record recalls winter and quiet places. Every song is subtle and packed with emotion. Songs like "Bluebird of Happiness" and "Billoddity" have more piano and moogs than the past records. It's like a record that you listen to on a cold winter day in a dark room alone. There is true beauty in melancholy and loss if you look for it. This record is for those kind of moods.

neal halstead is quickly becoming one of our great songwriters. he's quietly and uassumingly gone about penning some of the most beautiful, eloquent songs of the last decade. fortunately, 'spoon and rafter' continues to showcase his skills.

'spoon and rafter' halstead and co. venturing into new areas, without losing their familiar sound. i was pleasantly surprised by 'bluebird of happiness.' coming in at nine minutes, it's a stellar opening track challenging the listener to hang in there for the duration. patient listeners won't be disappointed. it's three minute intro and three minute coda bookend a gorgeous melody and vocal.

all the traditional mojave sounds are here also: the plucky guitars, the single xyophone notes, the airy vocals (unfairly maligned by many). mojave 3's vocal arrangements have always been one of the groups more dynamic aspects. sadly, dare i say tragically, rachel's vocals seems to be little more than set dressing. with each successive mojave album her vocals become less and less apparent. this proves troubling and rachel goswell possesses one of the finest set of pipes you'll ever hear. whether mojave 3 is turning into the the 'neal halstead show' or rachel saved her vocals for her own album, i don't know. but i hope future mojave releases sees rachel singing along to neal's songs.

having said that, however, the majority of the album's songs shimmer. a few misses, but entirely forgiveable when you've got songs this lovely. i'm particularly fond of 'hard to miss you' (neal writes a love song better than anyone -- listen to 'high hopes' off his solo album) and 'she's all up above.'

just as with their other three albums (and the three slowdive albums), you just really can't go wrong. get them all.

i saw mojave 3 along with lush and sheer back in 1996 in salt lake city. here's hoping they come again. please, neal, come back. please. please. please. salt lake city loves you.

I've been a huge fan since the Slowdive days and really like Halstead's solo stuff as well. After a few listens so far, only the first track really stands out and it is INCREDIBLE. I'm sure the rest will get better with repeated listens as all good albums do, but "Excuses for Travellers" is their best effort. Each Mojave 3 album is excellent but "Excuses..." soars from track to track with an urgency and beauty unmatched by any of the others, including "Spoon and Rafter". If you are unsure but interested get the "Excuses for Travelers" album first.

I loved Ask Me Tomorrow, the first LP by Mojave 3, but everything that came after sounded more like solo Neil Halstead albums rather than group efforts, which for me was bad news because I was a fan of the alternating vocals between him and Rachel Goswell. Still, I enjoyed their second and third albums for what they were but Spoon & Rafter is my least favorite one so far. The songs sound like uninspired, forgettable pop.