Hat Fitz And Cara : Do Tell
Subscribe
X

Get the latest from Beat

Hat Fitz And Cara : Do Tell

cfdotell.png

In their live gigs, Hat Fitz and Cara are gorgeous on stage, taking the piss out of each other like only a married couple can, only with a few hundred of their closest mates in the audience laughing along.

Musically, they’re just as endearing, both vocals and instrumentals complementing each other beautifully; Cara’s powerful but soulful steam-train of a voice meshing seamlessly with Fitz’s more gravelly, bluesy tones.

For this album Fitz takes on vocals, guitar and banjo, while Cara is on vocals, drums, percussion, fife, flute and acoustic guitar, and they have some guests, including Ian Collard on harmonica (the mouth organ on Excuse Me was particularly foot-tappingly good). On bass is the album’s producer, Jeff Lang, who also produced their previous effort, Wiley Ways.

The ten original tracks are a mostly blues/country affair, heavier on the blues than the country, with some sexy slide guitar and string work proving one of the highlights. But the final track gives the album a hillbilly finale with some excellent fiddle and banjo.

There’s no doubt this album is more string-heavy than Wiley Ways, which had a more Celtic feel (Cara hails from Ireland) thanks, in part, to much more flute and fife. As much as I do wish slightly that the album had more of the flutes because it’s not a sound we get a lot of in Australian country blues (she whines, wistfully) it’s fantastic that this album feels like a new effort and a step up, with another growth in sound and maturity.

And the shift in gears really pays off, in a solid, quality effort that’s going to be in heavy rotation in my earphones until further notice.

BY ISABELLE ODERBERG

Best Track: Excuse Me and Do Tell

If You Like This You Will Like: Eaten By Dogs

In a Word: Badarse