By Evan Verploegh
Some voices have the power to pull strings inside people that are seemingly otherwise unattainable. The harmonies that The Lowest Pair’s Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee produce on their latest release, The Sacred Heart Sessions, meld together in a way that does exactly that. The duo hailing from Olympia, WA and Minneapolis, MN respectively, have managed to create an enchanting and delightful record combining elements of folk, americana and bluegrass.
The Sacred Heart Sessions kicks off with the sweet, sincere voice of Kendl Winter in “Ruben’s Fortune”. Many songs on the album entice you with the innocuous vocals of Winter before Lee joins in to create a much more shadowy and stirring sound. I find songs such “Rosie” and “In the During of A Moment” to be especially potent do to their flawless execution of this ying and yang style.
The unembellished dueling banjo sound of The Lowest Pair allows the vocals to shine in a front and center role. This is not to undermine the playing of the Winter and Lee, as they use their simple, intertwining lines as a brilliant complement to their sublime voices. I think an aspect of what sets The Lowest Pair apart from other male/female duo’s that are lumped into the same “genre” is their ability to soar over the instrumentation and also to subdue themselves when needed to avoid smothering the song.
Lyrically, the pair are successfully able to touch on an array of both gloomy, mournful topics to singing about bacon fat in radiant eighth track, “Smile and Nod”. The album closer, “Scavenger Hunt” is a chilling song that deals with finding the path back to normalcy and tranquility after the departure of a past lover. “You left me clues / You left me clueless / You left me used / You left me useless”. Lee shines here, with his voice crying out with a compelling sense of pain as he convinces us that he’s going to “find his way”.
The Lowest Pair unquestionably have the vocal prowess to continue on successfully as a powerful duo. But it’s their effortless, complementary approach and fluent songwriting ability that makes them stand out from a large pack of other male/female duo’s. With the robust voice of Palmer T. Lee and the subtle, melodious twang of Kendl Winter, look for The Lowest Pair to grasp the torch that The Civil Wars left behind.
http://www.spin.com/articles/the-lowest-pair-rosie-single-stream/
CD Release – http://riftmagazine.com/event/the-lowest-pair-cd-release/
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