Album Review: Andy Ferro’s “Muirhead”

Article by: Jessica Gorrell

With a soft acoustic, smooth vocals, and brandishing the unmistakeable sound quality of an old, dusty tape recorder, Andy Ferro‘s debut album, Muirhead, could easily pass for long lost Lennon cuts. Ferro, London-born and Nashville-bred, uses folk and psych vibes to recall familiar sounds of the 1950s and 60s, mixing them all up into his own sound.

Though Muirhead is just 7 songs, this EP is the perfect breakout record for Ferro, as it showcases his talents with a myriad of different embellishments that bring the whole album around into a familiar yet invigoratingly fresh sound. And all this is accomplished through the use of an old tape machine; no recording studio, no thousand button mixing boards, just a man, a guitar and (occasionally) a keyboard. To give a sense of just how down to earth this EP truly is, the album closes out with a little screw-up on the opening chords of “Useless Powder,” and a feint “shit” uttered by Ferro himself.

The opening track, “Sugar and Milk,” however, kicks off the way it’s meant to, with a lilting chord progression and a heavy Link Wray-esque and St. Pepper style George Harrison guitar lick that weave itself through the song. Similarly, “Hood,” the third single of the EP, also features a vibrant electric picking.

With a few synth-like contributions by Mitch Jones, the psychedelic spirit of prominent 60s rock icons like Syd Barrett shines through on tracks like “Plane Clothes,” “Crystal Tongue,” and “Pendulum Song.”
But even with the psychedelic vibes and the occasionally chunky, squealing guitars, the entire album, with its melodic chord progressions and catchy vocals, is soft and reminiscent of 1950s icon Buddy Holly – in reality, it seems like the perfect backing tracks to a heartwarming indie film.

Muirhead will be released on February 26 via Rough Beast Records.

Track Listing:
1. Sugar and Milk                                5. Black Caboose
2. Hood                                                 6. Plane Clothes
3. Crystal Tongue                                7. Useless Powder
4. Pendulum Song