We Are The Willows

We Are The Willows seems an appropriate name for a band that spends much of its time writing songs that seems to sway in the breeze oh so quietly. The band's founder Peter Miller has created an album consisting of folk pop that sounds more like a children's choir singing songs in a field than anything approaching what you would call traditional folk. With a countertenor voice that could almost shatter glass, much of WATW's album, A Collection of Sounds and Something Like The Plague sits somewhere between the upper register of toleration and some genius.

A Collection of Sounds and Something Like The Plagueis an acquired taste. Truth be told, this is not an easy album to get into and that's simply because of the helium influenced vocals that predominate much of the record. Musically WATW's offer some intriguing sounds that really are more ambient and droney than anything else, and while at times the ideas that Miller comes up with are really good, the vocals just become a bit much. "The Windows," for example strums it's way gently across the way but is interrupted only by a chorus that features Millers voice on a climb to the heights of human hearing; you can't help but remember the tune because of his soaring nearly prepubescent vocals. Perhaps the best way to describe WATW is that 'they' almost sound like disembodied spirits looking for homes.

A Collection of Sounds and Something Like The Plague is stirring, spooky music that could be really fantastic stuff if toned down just a notch. I wanted to like We Are The Willows, but the vocals just started to grate on me a bit too much. I'm hoping that Miller drops an octave and continues on, because musically much of A Collection of Sounds and Something Like The Plague would be really cool dreamy music but for now it's just a bit too ethereal in every aspect for it's own good.