If It's Too Loud...

Artist : Ash and Eric (fka The Promise is Hope) Album : Sure Quick Thoughts : For all the talk of Central Massachusetts and greater New England being a hub for metal, it's stunning how much high-quality roots and folk music comes from these parts. The latest album from Ash & Eric, who many may know under their previous name The Promise Is Hope, released a new album this week that is stunningly gorgeous and rivals The Civil Wars in terms of the ability to pull together compelling songs and narratives with gorgeous melodies and harmonies both. I'm a little biased, as they have roots in my hometown, but I did not expect to outright love this album the way I do, and I think you should make time for it. Songs of Note : "Until My Heart Grows Quiet," "Church of the Concrete Wave," "Simon, Taylor, Denver, Cash" Artist : Lily Henley Album : Oras Dezaoradas Quick Thoughts : I didn't know Lily Henley before this week, but in terms of impress...

Lily Henley's upcoming album isn't just about the music. The songs on Oras Dezaoradas highlight the Ladino language, which fuses old Spanish with Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish elements, and is spoken by less than one hundred thousand people today. The album is composed of Sephardic Jewish ballads set to new melodies. Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition and moved throughout North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. "Morena Me Llaman" is an example of what to expect from Henley. It's unlike anything we've brought you in the past despite being rooted in a traditional folk sound. Aside from just being a beautiful song, listening is culturally important as well. Even if world music isn't traditionally your thing, you owe it to yourself to give this a shot. In a press release, Lily Henley talks about her new album: “There are so few young musicians in this song tradition, and, to me, doing an album of the old melodies, re-recording wh...