Clumsy Lovers

These five British Columbia lovers of bluegrass and Celtic music offer a deluge of musical delight with this debut. A mixture of instrumentals and banjo picking hoedowns mark the 15 tracks. The frenzied pace of the songs is set from the opening plucks of the banjo on "Better Me.” While musically the song succeeds, the lyrics by bassist and bandleader Chris Jonat are an example of lazy writing, filled with clichés and tired similes about self-improvement. This opener epitomises the Clumsy Lovers’ sound. While the music sounds clumsy and contrived at times, it’s perfectly polished at others. The band takes traditional reels and tunes from the Appalachian tradition and adds their folksy flavour. "Everything’s Okay” oozes into your sub conscience and you find your head bopping and feet tapping to the bluegrass beats. "Mercy” sounds like a cross between the Travelling Wilburys’ "Last Night” and a Great Big Sea song — the melody is so familiar that you start humming the next line before you hear it. The Caribbean flavoured "Spare in the Trunk” conjures up an image of a bluegrass toting beach bum; the inspired instrumentation shows the breadth of the Clumsy Lovers’ influences.