RIYL: The Lumineers, Mumford and Sons, Of Monsters and Men, Sufjan Stevens
Recording as Radical Face, Jacksonville, FL native Ben Cooper has been releasing LP’s and EP’s since 2003. Cooper is a prolific singer songwriter, and veers towards a serious DIY ethic, choosing to release unmastered versions of many of his albums and at times enlisting his large family to help with costumes for his music videos. Following his well-received 2007 album ‘Ghosts’, which featured the surprise hit “Welcome Home”, Cooper embarked on an ambitious project titled ‘The Family Tree’, consisting of a trilogy of albums narrating the tale of the fictional Northcotes family through its generations in the 1800’s. The first of these albums, ‘The Family Tree: The Roots’ was released in 2011, with ‘The Family Tree: The Branches’ following in 2013.
In an attempt to make the project sound more period, Cooper has attempted to only use musical instruments available in the 1800’s, and as a result the sound on these albums has veered more towards pure folk than his earlier releases. ‘The Branches’ starts strong with the one-two punch of “Holy Branches” and “The Mute”, two powerful tracks which each have compelling videos on You Tube. “Holy Branches” uses a nice mix of piano, acoustic guitar and strings to form a soothing backdrop as Cooper pens dark and existential lyrics. “Make your home behind my eyes/ Line my skull with harmless lies” he sings, “I’ll bide my time until I’m something they want.”
“The Mute” follows a similar pattern, with Cooper using stirring guitar strumming and an “oohing” vocal refrain to tell the tale of a mute child who runs away from home. Managing to be both catchy and extremely moving, it’s a definite highlight on the album. “Reminders” is next up and employs some of the same techniques but doesn’t sink in as deeply as the first two tracks. Most of ‘The Branches’ features similar moods, with tracks defined by Cooper’s soft vocals and sharp chord progressions. There are nice percussive rhythms on “The Crooked Kind”,
“Chains” and other late tracks but sonically there really isn’t enough creativity to give most of these songs staying power.
The late track “The Gilded Hand” conjures some of the earlier magic and overall ‘The Branches’ contains enough strong material to provide a good showcase for Cooper’s unique and compelling songwriting.
