Tom Lynch

Haunting, even mystic, the Powell sisters of Brooklyn almost shouldn’t be heard outside of your dreams. Using intricate, hypnotizing vocal harmonies and a minimal, yet ambitious, concoction of backing instruments, Alexis and Lindsay Powell, aka Festival, craft a sort of backwoods, church-choir revolution in “Come, Arrow, Come!”, their debut record on Language of Stone. It’s too easy to call the duo’s vocal weaving beautiful; it’s not even accurate. This is more. This is big and bold and overpowering—not religious, but of the hugeness that’s dragged along with religion. Comparisons can be made (maybe Sufjan Stevens’ “Seven Swans” detour), but they’re all a stretch. The unnerving nature of Festival’s daring earthiness invites itself into your head and, throughout “Come, Arrow, Come!”’s brief twenty-nine minutes, expands, widens like a breakfast spread. If that sounds uncomfortable, it is, and it’s enough to shake up this soulless goddamn tedium infecting the globe. I’m looking at you, 3 Doors Down.

Festival plays August 18 at Empty Bottle, 1035 North Western, (773)276-3600, at 9pm. Free. Yeah, it’s free, so you have to go. (2008-08-13)

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