Red Moon Road

In the 2 plus years since a harrowing drive down a mountain to Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital with a lead singer, who had just broken her leg in an amazing frisbee-catch-gone-horribly-wrong, stoically alternating between joking and crying in the trunk, Red Moon Road has had its Sorrows and Glories. A cancelled tour was traded for some bedside songwriting, and the most fun those surgeons ever had. Still, within months, on 5 legs and two crutches, the unstoppable Canadian trio hit the studio before resuming its perpetual pendulum peregrination from Pacific to Atlantic. Now, 2 years later and sans crutches, home from a 10 week European tour, Winnipeg roots/folk-darlings Red Moon Road, that is to say, Sheena, Daniel and Daniel (yes there are two of them, it saves on ink) release a brand new full length studio album: Sorrows and Glories. Their third recording (2012’s eponymous full length and 2013’s Tales from the Whiteshell), Sorrows and Glories is a collaborative creation, inevitably influenced by healing and experience. An inspired and multifarious sonic adventure, at once a bold new step in the evolution of the band, yet a continuation of Red Moon Road’s singular and captivating ability to spin song and story into something more. In collaboration with the impeccable ears and deft fingers of multiple Juno recipient David Travers-Smith (Wailin’ Jennys/Ruth Moody) and run through the filter of award winning producer-player-song-ninja Murray Pulver (Doc Walker/Steve Bell), the album delivers the band’s finest songwriting to date. From Beatle-esque pop hits musing the storied past of the Rosyln Apartment Complex, Winnipeg’s most iconic turn-of-the-century digs turned hipster hideout, to a full-on spiritual backed by a star studded choir; effortlessly infusing a taste of Albertan country with traditional folk storytelling, while including tales of familial Canadiana along-side a whimsical Parisian aire in ode to Napoleon’s, and later Louis XVIII’s, beloved Sophie Blanchard (the Official Aeronaut of both the Empire AND the Restoration), the sprawling 11 song masterwork is artfully framed with original and innovative instrumental work, and prominently features the unmistakable vocal prowess of the soulful Sheena Rattai, one of Canada’s true emerging songstresses. In the four years the band has existed, audiences have come to expect something beyond your usual concert. Red Moon Road shows treat audiences to an impressive instrumental presentation; the sonic evolution born of the collaboration between three insatiably creative musical forces. A roots drum kit cunningly split between two band members, an acoustic guitar that also sounds its two lowest strings as a bass, powerhouse lead female vocalists, a moustached man playing Mandolin, Lap Steel, Banjo and Organ (often at the same time) and impeccably timed immaculate three part harmonies. As always though, it's the way the music is brought into sharper focus by the band’s signature and captivating storytelling ability, and how these multi-talented and disarmingly endearing personalities are fully present that elevates a concert with Red Moon Road into a collective experience, bridging gap between performer and audience, leaving your heart a little fuller and the world seeming a little more wonderful. Songs. Stories. Adventures.