IRISH indie folk band Villagers have returned with their fourth album, Where Have You Been All My Life, a collection of re-recorded songs from their previous albums.
For someone who may not be intimately familiar with Villagers’ discography, Where Have You Been All My Life serves as a pleasant, if one-note listen.
The album has it’s merits: the ethereal synths on ‘The Waves’ (originally from 2013 sophomore album Awayland) are interesting, and the more upbeat nature of ‘Memoir’ (originally a B-side from the 2011 ‘Set The Tigers Free’ single) from the along with its bass lines and gospel-esque backing vocals make it a stand-out tack.
The repeated, looping acoustic guitars on ‘The Soul Serene’ (originally from last year’s Darling Arithmetic) are also fairly enjoyable, if the song does becoming grating in it’s repetition after not very long.
Despite this, however, the main problem with the album lies in that many of the tracks are not discernible from one another. Tracks like ‘Courage’ and ‘Hot Scary Summer’ (both from Darling Arithmetic) drag and are not really good for anything beyond background listening. Yet the album, as a whole, doesn’t have the ambience necessary for it to be convincing enough as a more subtle or down-tempo folk album.
Villagers are very capable folk musicians and that shows on Where Have You Been All My Life, but the end product, as a whole, comes across grey; that said fans will sure find something interesting in earlier, more upbeat songs being re-recorded in a more laid back style.
The last track on the album – the only one that is not a re-recorded Villagers song – is a fairly enjoyable cover of Glen Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’, stripping back the original’s fuller-sounding orchestral backing to a simpler acoustic guitar and piano arrangement.
Overall, Where Have You Been All My Life provides an serene, enjoyable collection of folk music.
Watch our session recorded with Villagers in New York via our Youtube.
