The Duhks--Fast Paced World Track By Track

[Stormy]

Mighty Storm:
A gritty ballad about a 1900 storm that wiped out Galveston, this is the most strained of the ballad with Sarah straining to be heard over her bother's drums, still it is pretty good.

Fast Paced World:
Sarah's attempt to match Rodney Crowell's The Outsider doesn't measure up to that lofty standard, but it is saved by the quirky arrangement.

This Fall:
Here is where the album get amazingly good, with Sarah alternately growling and pouting her way through a tongue in cheek lament about watching everyone else fall in love this season.

Adam's Three Step:
Tania's light and lilting fiddle tune that blends beautifully with the gypsy drums of Christian Dugas without ever quite losing its Celtic edge.

Toujours Voulior:
Toujous Voulior is a sultry, Edith Piaff style jazz song that floats along on he smokey tones of Sarah Dugas elegant vocal.

You Don't See It:
Sarah turns around, lightening the smolder of her voice to a soft vanila polish for the albums most commerical track, a song which saves itself from mediocrity with liberal use of Elizabeth's fiddle and Christian's drums.

Ships In High Transit:
The Duhks celebrate the birth of Scott Senior's with a rollicking cletic fiddle, banjo strum and latin drum throwdown.

Magalenha:
Papa Senior returns in fine form for Magalenha, a salsa romp that shows off Sarah's third language and verstile interpretative skills.

Sleeping Is All I Wanna Do:
Sarah returns to her blues meets jazz roots with this lazy number that finds Tania soaring to new heights, playing melody lines normally reserved for instruments like trumpets or clarinets.

95-South:
While Leonard has featured a call and response song on each of this albums, this is the first one he has written. This one is a bit cliche, but the sheer joyous abandon with which The Duhks perform it will put a smile on your face.

New Rigged Ship:
The Duhks always include a medley of tradional instrumental tune on their albums, hopefully to give the audience a taste of hoe much funt hey have jamming, and this one may be their best.

I See You:
This song finds Sarah again in the style of jazz from which she wrought the smokey Sleeping Is All I Wanna Do and This Fall, but this time she is all sweetness and light.

[Razor X]

I'm listening to some of their older music on Last FM right now. They are very good. Not the sort of thing I would listen to all the time, but it makes for a nice change of pace.

[Stormy]

Their newer stuff has more of an old school blues/jazz feel.

[Sam G]

I finally got around to getting this CD. The slower, jazzier numbers didn't do too much for me, but the rest of the CD is a stunner. Sarah Dugas definitely has some powerhouse vocals, but she also has a lot of versatility to sing slow and sweetly as well. The instrumentation is excellent, as always. There aren't too many bands that can bounce from jazz to folk to bluegrass to Celtic so easily, but they manage to pull it off. Definitely one of my favorites from this year.

[Matt C]

Robbie Fulks on Fast Paced World:

To my taste this is a mile or two above their first release. It is certainly quite a different sound, percussive and emotionally aggressive and loud-mastered where its predecessor was plucky and pretty -- about as different (maybe this isn't a coincidental comparison) as Nickel Creek's third record from its first. It also has a female lead singer that I don't think was part of the group the first time out, and she reminds me a little of Natalie Maines, that kind of power and glory -- really strong.

via http://robbiefulks.com/

[Stormy]

Would not have figured Robbie Fulkes for a Duhks fans--good to know. One thing I don't think he realized that figures into a lot of what he says is that they also changed percussionists for this album.


On a side note:
Mr. Fulkes:
When you have already admitted to listening to Ben Kweller you can admit listening to Green Day. You don't need an 11-year-old as an excuse.