What Hearts – The Goldenest Promise

contributor: Hoyt Emerson, July 8, 2009

The trend in popular folk music as of late has been an attempt to redefine it. Relying on artistic impression and enigmatic lyrical choice, young folk is more about the aesthetic than it is storytelling. While there is merit to this particular approach to the genre, there is still a need to perform folk music in a more pure form. From it’s bluegrass and country roots, American Folk became the genre of people and stories. It was there that it made it biggest impact. It was there that it carved it’s place in modern music.

Within the first seconds of What Hearts’ album, The Goldenest Promise, you can hear the dedication to straight ahead folk, bluegrass music. While capturing the dust bowl era of mountain top folk music, it’s easy to get caught up in a derivative reprise of older music. Julie Vitells songwriting for What Hearts focuses on songwriting with an apparent deep love for Kimya Dawson. Her quirky, high end voice and bouncy melodies lend credence to the anti-folk songstress. Her compositions, however, sit right in the pocket. Never straying to far from a formulaic, bluegrass approach, it’s easy to quickly write this off as another one of those albums. There comes a time though when the direct representation of a type of music, done well, gives credit to the artist. This would be the best explanation for why What Hearts’ album deserves more attention than others. The reality is, we need to be reminded that young people can still capture what the genre was originally intended to do. Standout songs like “Winter Here in Oregon”, “Phineas Gage” and “Adventures of City Mouse” show that Vitells has her own voice within the format and that is ultimately the defining quality that keeps things interesting.

What Hearts shows that a clear focus and strong musicianship can easily engage the listener but that it takes more than that to keep the listener there. It takes character along with honesty to stay above par within an already saturated genre. What Hearts does there best here to stay away from that throw away bluegrass sound and with the help of Vitells’ direction, they’ve managed to do just that.