House of Doc

For a band who boast members equally at home playing concert piano or bassoon with the Winnipeg Symphony, House of Doc still manage to sound completely natural singing prairie-hick bluegrass inspired folk songs. Prairiegrass was produced by Spirit of the West’s Vince Ditrich but the band has more in common with the Bills or even SOTW alumnus Linda McRae’s solo country material. Mainly revolving between pensive singer-songwriter material ("Peace of Mind,” "Gravestones in Namaka”) and bluegrass romps ("I Was Lonely,” "House on Dusty Ground”) House of Doc do throw in the occasional Maritime influence. "Our Soddy,” for instance, could easily be a Stan Rogers song or even Great Big Sea a cappella — musically that is, not exactly in lyric. The instrumental intro to "I Was Lonely” gives the family band a chance to show off their incredible chops — the amount of instruments this quintet play is actually daunting with bouzouki, squeezebox, mandolin and harmonica, to name a few. And "Legacy,” with its combination of Celtic whistle, dustbowl melody and sibling harmonies is a shining example of all the band’s strength’s at once.