There are a lot of acoustic guitar-wielding singer-songwriters about at the moment, and so if that’s your thing then you’ll need something to make yourself stand out from the crowd. A bit of bluster can work wonders; Borealis, the song that Molly Zacharias has presented us with here, is a wonderful example. To begin with, the vocals are accompanied by nothing more than a rickety-sounding guitar. Things build up gradually from there, but the real money shot comes just before the two-minute mark, when the song suddenly explodes into a euphoric, brass-laden crescendo. The whole is somewhat reminiscent of Bright Eyes (particularly Landlocked Blues), and that’s a lofty comparison indeed. JDE
