Alien8 Recording
2006
Ardent Fevers
About This Album
It has to be said first and foremost -- Ardent Fevers is a great album title, seemingly straightforward but expressive of a state of mind better than most. Perhaps appropriately, the same could be said of Tanakh's work, with Jesse Poe's collective again finding a way to understatedly hotwire the more epic and symphonic impulses of 21st century indie rock (for lack of a better term) into an elegant new form, aiming not to bludgeon but to calmly suggest and entrance. Some members remain the same and others are new, but the key personnel change here, reflective of Poe's move to Italy, lie in guitarist Umberto Trivella, who collaborates with Poe on about half the album's songwriting. (There's also a collaboration with Alan Davidson of the Kitchen Cynics, "Winter Song," a fine, stately balance between related but differing aesthetics.) Building off of Dieu Deuil's controlled power -- and much unlike the self-titled album, with a number of short songs instead of two long ones -- Ardent Fevers starts off strong with "Drink to Sher," a steady, uplifting guitar figure surrounded by softly swelling horns and an almost martial pace -- but never explosive.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,4,5,6,8,9 and 10)

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