Death Vessel is the name of Joel Thibodeau's new work as both a solo artist and band leader. His music, captured on the resplendent new record Stay Close, is an eloquent distillation of a life's tales. Born in Berlin, Germany before The Wall fell... raised in Kennebunkport, Maine before the senior Bush's presidency... this musician lived a childhood where the ghosts of Cold War casualties and seaport tragedies haunted the alleyways and beaches. Leaving Maine as a teenager, Thibodeau moved to Boston, Providence and New York. In Providence he was a founding member, songwriter and performer of the group String Builder. Now as then, Thibodeau captures the surreal and the sublime in wondrous song.[Read More...]
The Delta Spirit have more in common with the dirty haired, dirty fingernailed folk groups of the nascent years than they do any of their contemporaries. They're suited for reminiscent hopefulness and the gracefully youthful fusion of hostility and all-encompassing passion for all things that can set a smile ablaze or turn the hairs on arms and backs of necks into little beds of nails at the flick of a switch. They make lists of things they like, including all of the people they love, their home, pretty girls, desserts, bodies of water, justice and America. They believe there's still hope for it and in all of the rooms contained within the hallways of the band's newest offering, "Ode To Sunshine," they make you understand that, when it's all boiled down, what we all ultimately live for is catharsis and a fulfillment of body meeting land, air and sea harmoniously. They're about bodies meeting bodies, pressing skins to skins. They're about reminding you to listen more than you talk. They're about urging you to put stock in the happiness of others, not just your own. They make it obvious that we have to go somewhere to be somewhere. We have to feel something to really live. They sing of the soul searchers. They sing for the soul searchers. They are the soul searchers. – Sean Moeller
