Photo by D.L. Anderson

Leaps don’t come any bigger or bolder than the one Durham’s Midtown Dickens makes on Home. The band’s third LP, due April 3 on Trekky Records, represents a new level of maturity — both in words and music — for the folk quartet, which came into being a few years ago as a mostly twee duo. There’s none of that on Home, which is defined by expansive but understated odes that patiently ride acoustic instrumentation and save embellishments for the most dramatic moments.

“Only Brother,” the first release from the new album, follows suit. It’s melody hearkens to fellow Triangle-based folk act Megafaun, and it doesn’t suffer by that comparison. The patient instrumentation loops through acoustic and slide guitar, mandolin and what sounds like bassoon, which takes center stage during the song’s devastating bridge. The  lyrics convey an impressionistic tale of loneliness in which the shroud of metaphor only serves to heighten the bittersweet imagery.

Stream and download the track below, and also check out the press release from Trekky. —Jordan Lawrence

Midtown Dickens – “Only Brother”

“Trekky Records is proud to announce the release of Midtown Dickens’ third album, Home, the band’s most stunning and accomplished work to date. Durham, North Carolina’s Midtown Dickens have never sounded more bold or graceful than they do across these 11 gorgeous meditations on the themes of home (both literal and abstract), family (blood and chosen) and space (within us and about us). Home is the sound of journey and motion; the pulling apart and coming together we experience as we search for our place in the world.

Home is also Midtown Dickens’ most collaborative release, expanding the core duo of songwriters/vocalists Kym Register and Catherine Edgerton to include multi-instrumentalists Will Hackney and Jonathan Henderson. Recorded between tours in a near-constant year of traveling (including jaunts with kindred-spirits The Mountain Goats, Megafaun, and Lost in the Trees) the album reveals a band moving effortlessly as one. This unity brings focus and warmth to Edgerton and Register’s dark folk compositions.

Home was recorded by long-time collaborator Scott Solter (Spoon, St. Vincent, The Mountain Goats) at his studio in Monroe, North Carolina. The remote location afforded Midtown Dickens the time and space to delve into the most adventurous, experimental, and focused sessions of the band’s career. At first listen, it is clear that Home marks a dramatic shift in Midtown Dickens’ sonic world. While still anchored by acoustic, folk instrumentation (banjo, mandolin, acoustic guitar, upright bass), the album also wields layers of overdriven bowed cymbals, musical saws drowning in reverb and walls-of-sound that push acoustic instruments to places they’ve never been before. Yet the band never allows the noise to obscure the soul of the song, and without out a doubt these are the most realized and lucid songs Register and Edgerton have ever written, modern standards. Home evokes the stunning colors of Carolina tobacco fields and Appalachian mountain ranges, re-imagined and re-contextualized in a way that is undeniably Midtown Dickens.”

Home tracklist:

1. Home All Ways
2. Elephant
3. No More Reason (To Pine)
4. Only Brother
5. Apple Tree
6. Resting
7. Crocodile Mile
8. Walk, Don’t You Run
9. Volcanoes (Covered In Snow)
10. Cross My Heart
11. This Is My Home