There’s magic in great musical interplay, and Colorado-based Newcomers Home has it. Principal members Katie Herzig (vocals, acoustic guitar, djembe), Tim Thornton (mandolin, banjo, harmonica, vocals), and Andrew Jed (acoustic/electric guitars, vocals) met in the late ’90s as students at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where their dorm hall jam sessions sparked a musical chemistry that led to their formation as a band. It wasn’t long before they’d hatched their live act at a local coffeehouse and begun distilling their own spirited brand of world folk.
Marked by the rich instrumental interplay of bluegrass and Celtic traditions, the emotive lyricism of folk and singer-songwriter genres, and an array of worldbeat percussive flavors, the band’s music has galvanized ever-growing crowds with its rhythmic energy and melodicism. It probably doesn’t hurt that Newcomers forged their collective voice in the Rocky Mountain region, whose musical heritage long has nurtured acoustic music and served as a hotbed of cross-pollination for folk, bluegrass, and other jam-band collaboration.
But where other young acts might stitch styles together like a patchwork or get sidetracked on noodling odysseys, Herzig, Thornton, and Jed have managed to blend their wide-ranging musical ingredients into a unified voice. Like Nickel Creek and many other young, emerging talents, Newcomers has helped to revitalize traditional strains of acoustic music like bluegrass and folk by coloring them with the contemporary pop-rock influences. Banjos and drum loops? Bring it on!
Newcomers’ sophomore effort, In The Hour, features an expanded musical lineup that includes fiddle and a superb rhythm section (drums/percussion, bass), along with a few other instrumental shadings on accordion, pedal steel, and Uillean pipes. While one might deem a talented young ensemble with strong Celtic/bluegrass influences prone to strutting their chops, it’s a sign of their mature musical sensibilities that they don’t overplay. Having said that, there’s no shortage of intricacy as the guitar, mandolin, fiddle, percussion, and voice play off each other, conversing fluently, creating melodic counterpoints and ample room for the songs to let their acoustic tones breathe. Tasteful arrangements and subtle dynamics also conspire to bring gorgeous textures to the melodies.
Front and center are Herzig’s dulcet-toned vocals -- a mixture of raw emotion and poetic grace -- that animate her lyrics with passion and vulnerability, packing the songs with emotional power. Her voice transforms each song into a complete event, a nuanced emotional journey that can rise like an ethereal mist and evolve from fragile tension to soaring denouement.
In the tribal-folk album opener, “Fade”, Herzig’s trancelike vocal floats in over a haunting fiddle and spare guitar fingerpicking, and eventually ramps up over Celtic fiddle and ethno-rhythms (think Riverdance meets Rusted Root). A fiddle break later yields to a Santana-esque Latin rock solo with electric guitar and conga rhythms.
Throughout In the Hour, such fluid musicality deftly mingles earthy and airy elements, always in an organic way, constantly moving, yet never jumping off-course. Thornton’s supple mandolin, Herzig’s and Jed’s guitar lines, and the beautiful fiddle work of Laurie Momary complement Herzig’s vocal moods to help conjure the mood of each song. Graceful figures, licks, and arpeggios add filligree, softly cascade, and sweetly tinge the musical space, painting tunes like “Sante Fe” with bittersweet melancholy, and adding a rich, delicate warmth to the ballad “Can’t Look Away”.
The driving bluegrass pop of “Texas” is as infectious a tune as they come, as acoustic guitar, tenor banjo, mandolin, fretless bass, and pedal steel lines all crystallize under Herzig’s voice, weaving a twangy, sweet-rollicking rhythm that kicks into a driving doubletime chorus.
Newcomers tap into a purer Celtic vein on a pair of tunes that enlist contemporary bluegrass multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien on fiddle: the jiggy Thornton-penned instrumental, “Lowland”; and the gorgeous album-closing elegy, “The Wind that Shakes the Corn”, featuring Uillean pipes and accordion.
Of her 510ce, Herzig says: “I’ve dropped her, scratched her, sweat on her, pounded her strings and frame, and yet she can still sound so soft and delicate. I’ve grown with her, and every sound she makes has become part of my musical journey.”
Wherever their musical journeys takes them, there’s a good chance these 20-somethings will make themselves right at home.
—Jim Kirlin
