Blizzard Fest and Trail & District Arts Council presents The Bros. Landreth with opening act Slow Leaves at The Bailey Theatre on Sunday October 14 at 7:15pm.
The Bros. Landreth welcome a new day with "Come Morning", an album and tour that marks both a rebirth and refinement of the JUNO-winning band's blend of North American roots music and harmony-heavy soul.
"Come Morning" finds brothers Joey and Dave lacing their melody-driven songs with layers of atmospheric synth, organ, and textured guitar. The group's previous albums shone a light on their strength as a live act, capturing the spontaneity and sonic stomp of a band of hard-touring road warriors.
For Joey and Dave, rest wasn't always an easy thing to find. From their early days attending their father's gigs as babies ("Mom would take us in the bassinet and stick us under the bar tables," says David) to their years logged onstage and on the road, they've spent much of their lives being moved — both physically and emotionally — by music. After pursuing separate careers as sidemen, they launched The Bros. Landreth with 2013's "Let It Lie", a debut album that drew upon the shared soundtrack of their childhood — Bonnie Raitt's blues, Little Feat's funky country-rock, Ry Cooder's eclectic instrumentals, Lyle Lovett's twangy traditionalism — for a sound that saluted the past while planting its flag firmly in the present. This was music for the heart and the heartland, with songs that evoked the American South one minute and the windswept prairies of the brothers' Manitoba homeland the next. Fittingly, the siblings spent years crisscrossing Canada and America in support of its release, then toured overseas as their popularity swelled.
"Let It Lie" won the 2015 JUNO Award for "Roots & Traditional Album Of The Year - Group," earned The Bros. Landreth a nomination for "International Artist of the Year" at the 2016 UK Americana Music Awards, and received praise from heroes like Bonnie Raitt.
Their second album '87 arrived in September 2019 and marked an expansion of the band's sound, but its accompanying tour was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic. Deflated, Joey and Dave found themselves back home in Winnipeg, riding out the lockdown by funneling their energy into a new batch of recordings. Forced to keep a tight circle due to Covid restrictions, Joey and Dave worked together in near-seclusion on "Come Morning", pulling long hours in the studio and building songs one instrument at a time. They recorded, layered, stripped away, and layered again. Sounds were sampled, re-sampled, and twisted into something new. Prioritizing moody textures over fiery fretwork, Joey took an understated approach to the guitar, saving his big solos for key moments. He placed an equal emphasis on keyboards, beefing up the recordings with Hammond organ and analog synth.
"The overarching theme here is hope," says Joey. "Many of these songs lean into the tough stuff, like processing emotional trauma and finding strength on the other side. It's a bit of a myth that you're ever done working on that. Dave and I have just begun the journey, and that's why this record represents the rebirth we wanted '87 to be. We're working through the pain, processing it, unpacking our baggage, and beginning to move forward. Last time, we were just walking on a rug that had all kinds of stuff swept under it."
At the album's core are the Landreths themselves: two born-to-collaborate brothers who sing songs about hard truths and new beginnings, having been brought back together during a time of unprecedented isolation.
Opening for The Bros. Landreth is Slow Leaves. Grant Davidson has a distinctive poetic voice exploring recurring themes of romantic memory, artistic ambition, and dreams left unfulfilled. His music could exist as comfortably in the ‘70s as it does in today’s age of curated images and hollow soundbites, when vulnerability can be seen as defiance and sincerity as radical.
Tickets are $38.50 and can be bought online at thebailey.ca, by calling 250-368-9669, or by coming into the Box Office at 1501 Cedar Ave., Trail from Monday to Friday 12-4 pm.
$5 Extra for Shuttle service.
Thank you to Tourism Rossland. With funding support from the BC Arts Council, the Government of British Columbia, and the BC Touring Council. This project is funded [in part] by the Government of Canada. / Ce projet est financé [en partie] par le gouvernement du Canada.