Dublin-based five-piece I Draw Slow have in a very short time stacked up a huge amount of praise, and to go with this you have a generous number of prestigious gigs. The band isn’t only popular in Ireland, but Stateside appeared at top bluegrass festivals as Merlefest, Greyfox, Rockygrass and Pickathon, a tidy list to have on anyone resume.
Signed to Pinecastle Records, Stateside, I Draw Slow are all fine performers. Switching with ease from uptempo rippers to a heart tugging ballads, the quintet bring to the table bluegrass tinged with folk. As hints of their homeland colours their music. Made up of guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, double bass and vocals (Louise Holden on lead) their music is captivating, especially so on slow ballad, “Souvenirs” (it sounds like something Marianne Faithful could have done back in the 1960s, so sensitive and wonderfully pure the piece), fiddle and banjo warmed wistful piece “Now You’re Gone”.
Fetching fiddle, banjo and harmony vocals draped “The Captain” is a wonderful, urgent folk bluegrass track, and just as good as you are likely to find over on the other side of the water by bands there trying to capture roots music with a little Celtic influence. Propelled by yet more fine playing, Holden speaks of happenings at the “Grand Hotel” in poetic fashion, prior to the only cover (and not written by Dave and Louise Holden) on the record, traditional piece “Don’t Cry My Honey”. Reminiscent of Afro-American music of the Carolina Chocolate Drops it is a terrific cut, and wouldn't be out of place if heard on the radio immediately after their better known American counterparts.
Of a mellow feel, I Draw Slow with some nice acoustic guitar picking throughout provide an excellent contrast to their bluegrass styled material via “Springtime”. Careful not to overdo the bluegrass side of things in “Hide & Seek” they straddle the idioms superbly, and with a spring in its step “Whiskey Mirrors”. Better still you have old-time fiddle, banjo etc prompted “Bread & Butter” as performance levels are again lifted, and so authentic is the jaunty piece it could have been written in the 1800s! Follow that anyone! Wicklow and Dalkey where the record was made have something to be proud of in the making of White Wave Chapel, hopefully there shall be many more like it to come. Other members than the Holdens of the five-piece are; Colin Derham, Konrad Liddy and Adrian Hart.
Maurice Hope