Misner and Smith
Album: Seven Hour Storm
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.misnerandsmith.com

Coming together after finding common musical ground in American roots music while performing in a 2004 theatrical Woody Guthrie celebration, this is the fourth album by San Francisco folk duo Sam Misner and Megan Smith, he on guitar and she playing mandolin and upright bass. They've been likened to Welch and Rawlings, but, lighter and less dense in sound and arrangements, perhaps, gender aside, a more apt comparison might be early Simon and Garfunkel, certainly in parts of Lost & Found (the track prologued by guitar instrumental Miles Away) and 15 Months.

There's a definite 60s retro sound to be heard on the sunny Laurel Canyon harmonies of The Upside, the Prairie Companion moods of the strummed, harmonium accompanied folk Tamalpais and the waltzing, steel-streaked Lovers Like Us while Bird Street, with its psychedelic folk-rock 12 string guitars could well have come from some love generation stage production, and Smith's solo vocal spotlight Next Time Around nods to folk-gospel influences. It might not hit like a hurricane, but, if this is your sort of music, it's definitely one storm you'll want to be at the heart of.

Mike Davies