SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: GOOD LOVELIES – WE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME (DELUXE VERSION)

GOOD LOVELIES
WE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME (DELUXE VERSION)
OUTSIDE MUSIC

To celebrate the one year birthday of We Will Never Be the Same, Good Lovelies have released a deluxe version of the album. The streaming-only album features the original album plus a few new bonus tracks. For We Will Never Be the Same the band had returned to their roots. It isn’t folk and it isn’t country. What Good Lovelies do is combine these genres and come up with an interesting and beautiful hybrid of the genres.

The band consists of Caroline Marie Brooks, Kerri Ough and Sue Passmore. It opens with the gentle, yet powerful “Young At Heart”, which takes its time to roll out with some subtle and beautiful instrumentation. Other tracks, like “Keep Moving” have a bit of a bluesy vibe and are perhaps closer to country than other tracks on the album. It is a brilliant song, once again, allowing the trio to not only demonstrate their incredible harmonies but their musicianship. Elsewhere, a song like “Insomnia” is a sparse, moody song that is quite astounding.

The album ends with the wonderful and moving “Find Our Way Home”. It is a beautiful love song that bookends the album nicely with “Young At Heart”. The album brings the couple in the songs through a lot from the beginning to the end of the album. But nothing deters them, they find their way home. It is just a lovely way to end the album.

With the We Will Never Be the Same (Deluxe Version), the band has added some bonus material. There are three acoustic versions of album cuts. This includes “Find Our Way Home”, which in its acoustic form, the power and emotion of the song comes through with those strong vocals over a very stripped musical backing. The other two acoustic versions, “Baby I (Say What You Need) ” and “I Should Tell You More”, are much more bare than the album versions, and they demonstrate how much the two producers contributed to the overall sound of the album and the arrangements.

Good Lovelies also cover Fleetwood Mac’s  “Songbird” and Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Helplessly Hoping”. Both songs are perfect choices and seem almost custom made for the band. Both of the songs fit with the general acoustic feel of the album, and both, once again, allow Good Lovelies to show off their strong vocal strength. These are all welcome additions to the album. “Songbird” is a standout and, dare I say it, rivals the original.

We Will Never Be the Same (Deluxe Version) certainly is a brilliant way to celebrate its one year anniversary (or first birthday). It is also a great opportunity to remind fans and listeners just how good the album is. It is a strong album that, quite frankly, deserves to be rediscovered.

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