Fast Paced World

 (15 customer reviews)

I feel inadequate to review this album - I have a hearing loss which prevents me from noticing nuance, but the music is so exceptional I can hear between the lines. The Duhks are an eclectic mix of traditional and modern styles. "Mighty Storm" a traditional song is infused with modern instruments and yet maintains an old time sensibility. It is iconic of the band leading you into an old folk song in ways you have not considered.

Sarah Dugas, the lead singer, ably replaces Jessee Havey the former lead singer, bringing her distinctive voice to the album. Ms Dugas, maintains a distinctive style but you hear echoes of Macy Grey in "this fall" and Alicia Keys/Billy Holiday in "sleepin' is all i wanna do". Leonard Podolak , the founder, provides the only non-Dugas lead vocal in "95 South" a rollicking blue grass infused song. Jordan McConnell, as usual, provides exquisite guitar support. Tania Elizabeth sustains the superb string support to the project and co-wrote the...Read more

Had listened to the Duhks on the radio and really enjoyed them. Finally saw them live this past weekend at World Cafe Live in Philly, and they were amazing. They played most of Fast Paced World and I just had to buy it. I have also listened to their older work and agree this new recording and their new sound is an evolution. The old stuff was much more in the traditional bluegrass mold. Their new stuff is genre-busting, while still retaining some bluegrass elements and instrumentation (fiddle, banjo). Sarah Dugas has a great set of pipes, and especially live really lets it rip, but they are definitely still truly a band - all are great musicians. For any of you that have not seen them live, I highly recommend it!

I want to start this by saying that the Duhks used to be one of my favorite groups. Used to because of their recent effort. Their live shows on the other hand are still very exciting and I would rate those five stars.

On the other hand I have followed the duhks for a long time, and they didn't put out anything bad until this.

There was something magical about each one of their previous albums. All of them encompassing old-time string band and roots music in some sense. This kept everything very organic sounding yet new and it truly was beautiful. Having a band with Scott Senor's style of drums and the prevalence of clawhammer banjo and amazing fiddle playing was amazing. All I hear on this album is compression, drums, simple rhythms, mediocre song writing and monotonous sounding music. The Duhks old albums are all still in heavy rotation for me and this one quickly came and went.

You know it's not going well when your side project (Turtleduhks)...Read more