Harvest Rain is the project of brothers Jason and Jamey Thompkins from South Carolina. They now have released their second EP on the French OPN label, after the promising mcd ‘A Frost Comes with the Wind’. Again they have created some melancholic dark folk songs.
Harvest Rain usually calls its music ‘Samhain folk’, which has more to do with their Celtic spiritual background than with a very deviant type of dark folk. There are four tracks on ‘Evening and devotion’, which remind me quite a bit of Death in June. Both musical style (acoustic guitars and moody keyboard) and the vocals have clear similaraties to the early 90’s work of Douglas P. and co. This is especially the case on ‘Preservation by ice’.
‘Song for morning’ is a slow somber guitar song, which makes me think of Of the Wand and the Moon. The title track ‘Evening and devotion’ reminds me of Sol Invictus, especially through the dark bass sounds. You may know both this tune and ‘Song for Morning’ from the limited and expensive box ‘Security of ignorance’ released by Thaglasz.
The music of Harvest Rain may not be entirely original, but nevertheless makes up for pleasant listening material for rainy autumn days. This act knows how to write a melancholic song and they master their instruments. If they were to release a complete album I hope they use more variation, which is not such a problem in these 13 minutes, but could become too monotonous on a full-length album.
