Album Review: The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow

If you've been looking for an album to play on a slow, rainy Saturday morning, then Barton Hollow is for you. Carefully crafted by Nashville duo Joy Williams and John Paul White, aka The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow harbours all the hallmarks of a peaceful, folk record – the perfect soundtrack while you drink a cup of coffee, looking wistfully out your rain-splashed window. Beautiful melodies intertwine with their associated harmonies, acoustic guitar and piano combine for serene backdrops, and with an album duration of over an hour comprising 18 songs (including a live Billie Jean cover and unique take on another Jackson classic, I Want You Back), The Civil Wars are sure to keep you company well into the day.

Folk music takes many forms these days, from revisited field songs and six-piece descriptively scripted alt.country tunes, to the current crop of adult-contemporary artists such as Emmylou Harris, Neil Young and Alison Krauss. It is in this last category that The Civil Wars are to be shelved. Beautiful moments such as the unrequited love of Poison & Wine (“I don't love you / I always will”) and evergreen companionship in Forget Me Not (“I just want to hold your hand / Hang on every word you say / Let's write a song for us / And sing it till we're old and grey”) are just samples of the constant quality on Barton Hollow.

Of course, the barn-stomping gospel of the title track – “Ain't going back to Barton Hollow / Devil gonna follow me e'er I go” – and the Carter/Cash-inspired country tune Forget Me Not offer changes of pace too. But as you sit back with your own companion on that lazy Saturday morning, slip The Civil Wars on and let the day drift by.