Over the summer, the North Carolina rock/country/bluegrass/folk/pop band Delta Rae released its debut album, Carry the Fire, and managed to line up a performance at the Democratic National Convention. The band made a fairly big political move in May, with the release of its song, "Chain on Love." The song was written by singer Ian H?dlljes as a condemnation of California voters for passing Proposition 8, disallowing gay marriage in the state. The band filmed a live performance of the song and released it a few days before North Carolina voted on Amendment 1, which was to confirm that only heterosexual marriages would be considered valid and recognized in the state. The band and its song were not enough to stop the bill from passing, but it did give the band something fans could cling to: politics.
In addition to speakers, the Democratic National Convention booked many well-known musical acts including Foo Fighters, Mary J. Blige, and James Taylor, all of whom performed on Sept. 6. Also scheduled to play was Delta Rae, but poor weather canceled its performance. This was a huge missed opportunity for the band, but the question still stands: how did Delta Rae fall into this star-studded lineup?
The band's North Carolina origins make them potentially appealing to an audience from Charlotte, where the DNC was held. "But Joy, that's what James Taylor was there for!" Okay, fine. It is likely that the band was booked due to "Chain on Love" and its message for marriage equality; Delta Rae's inclusion among those scheduled to perform at the DNC could have been a message from Democrats to voters that gay rights are on the party's agenda, as it was certainly not due to its music. Carry the Fire is simply not a good album.
So far the album has produced two singles, "Morning Comes" and "Bottom of the River," neither of which has received much of a response. The band is signed to the major label Sire Records, along with Never Shout Never and The Veronicas, and despite some clear attempts to sound raw and unedited ("Bottom of the River" has the song's lead vocalist Brittany H?dlljes literally screaming her "vocals" in what is meant to sound like one intense take), the band cannot escape from the fact that it is an unoriginal, perfectly polished product. "Country House," a song about love, with a certain country-rock tinge to it, could have been a Taylor Swift single.
The six-piece group includes four singers (two of whom play guitar), an upright bassist and a drummer who sometimes plays the chains and trash cans. With all of this going on,Carry the Fire, in addition to being unoriginal, is simply far too ambitious. Songs that at the core are quite simple are congested with horns, piano, trash-can drums and four voices that are each strong and loud enough to survive on their own. The four singers, who include siblings Eric, Ian and Brittany H?dlljes, and friend Elizabeth Hopkins, wrote the album in a house they shared in the North Carolina woods. It was this scenery that inspired much of the album's lyrics, telling tales of North Carolina pride and deep-southern living.
It sounds like a Bon Iver fairy tale, yet it is hard to find any common sound or theme in Carry the Fire. Most songs do resemble a Taylor Swift-esque pop/rock/country song, but "Fire" has the band touching on a Thursday post-hardcore sound while remaining radio friendly (resulting in a jumbled mess), "Forgive the Children" is an attempt at an uplifting piano ballad that one may expect from a Christian rock band and "Surrounded" sounds like your parent's favorite adult contemporary radio hit, potentially a bad song by The Fray.
The band is young enough, having officially formed in 2009 at Duke University where brothers Ian and Eric were students, that it is not surprising that the members have yet to figure out their sound.
It takes most good bands years of writing and performing before establishing an original, cohesive sound. The haste with which the band produced its messy debut album, however, leaves little hope for time for actual productive song-writing.
The members of the band, especially the H?dlljes siblings, are clearly talented. They are simply trying too hard to sound like literally every musical artist they have ever heard and liked. It is one thing to copy one artist's sound, but Delta Rae is currently caught up in copying that of many.
Musically, Delta Rae is not worth much attention, yet due to their politics and their invitation to perform at something as huge as the DNC this early on in their career, we can expect to hear more from them soon.