On Friday, September 15th, 2023, the indie-folk band ‘The Brook and the Bluff’ released their highly-anticipated third studio album, Bluebeard. With a title and several songs and lyrics inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s autobiography, Bluebeard, the album of the same name feels right at home in the band’s discography as it transports listeners to the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

Given all of the references to nature in the lyrics, visuals and sound of the album, it comes as no surprise a sense of place and connection to the outdoors are significant to this southern quintet. Founded in 2015 by guitarist Alec Bolton and lead vocalist Joseph Settine during their Senior year at Auburn University, the band gets its name from these same southern roots - Bolton and Settine hail from Mountain Brook and Bluff Park, respectively. Since then, bassist Fred Lankford, drummer John Canada and keyboardist Kevin Canada have rounded out the group before their relocation to Nashville, TN.

While this album is over 6 years in the making, the core of Bluebeard took shape over the past 2 years. In Spetember of 2021, the band spent 10 days in John and Kevin’s family cabin in the mountains of Sky Valley, GA writing 10 of the 12 tracks on the album. As frontman Joseph Settine recounts, the band would frequently visit the cabin where they’d spend time writing and connecting as musicians and friends and, in his own words, “the mountain house is one of the only places in the world where [we] feel truly weightless.” Their love for this place and the freedom they felt there becomes apparent throughout the album but is no more prevalent than it is in the album’s cover art, which happens to be a photograph taken from the porch of that very same cabin. And no, that butterfly is not photoshopped in(!) You can thank serendipitous timing and the quick trigger of John’s thumb, for that one.

In a newsletter that went out to the band’s fans, Settine also describes how they sought out to create a record “that makes [them] feel the way [they] do in the mountains… we hoped to make something that felt like a gateway to a better place, whatever that may be for those who hear it,” he says. And, through their unique blend of folk, rock and soul-influenced stylings that have become a staple of the band’s sound, it feels as though The Brook and the Bluff may have done just that. The rich, smooth vocals meld beautifully with the powerful arrangements each song on the album puts forth to create a truly genre-defying amalgamation of sound. While the tempo and overall pace of this album may be slower than some of their previous music, the bass lines and groove that underlie all 12 tracks keeps the album moving and ensures that it emanates all the good vibes, even when dealing with darker subjects, lyrically. This album is colorful and airy but has an overarching sense of groundedness cut by levity that can only be attributed to the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

As an album, Bluebeard seems to be a near-perfect example of tonal intentionality, with each piece of instrumentation working towards creating a specific sense of place and time that the band was determined to share with the world. In their artful layering of male vocals, juicy strings and an intentionally varied soundscape, thinking specifically about their use of building up and stripping away these walls of sound, these boys have given the world a gift and we can see just how much care clearly went into it. 

Following the release of this album, The Brook and The Bluff will be hitting the road for an extensive North American tour which kicks off this week! You can find more information about the Bluebeard Tour along with tickets and new merch at their site, brookandbluff.com. 

For a track-by-track breakdown of the album from the band’s perspective, make sure to check out this article published by Paste Magazine 

And make sure to listen to Bluebeard, available on all streaming services now! 

**originally published to Lovebomb Magazine**