James Vincent McMorrow - Early In The Morning

James Vincent McMorrow, like his often-compared-to folksy peer Bon Iver, sports an impressive beard, and an even more impressive song writing talent. Rather than hailing from the American Midwest though, McMorrow is a native of Ireland, and it was in a house there he recorded ‘Early In The Morning’.
JVM’s vocals more than occasionally resemble the haunting whine of DM Stith (that’s a good thing) and the instrumentation on many of his songs is a little reminiscent of something Mumford & Sons would produce (you decide what that means yourself). His falsetto in songs like ‘From The Woods’ is urgent, tense, and generally brilliant.

McMorrow combines tales of heartbreak and disillusionment, with lush arrangements to create a debut that is almost flawless, but for its familiarity. The album is packed with upbeat, military drumming and gorgeous harmonies (hell, the first noise on the album is McMorrow’s multitrack vocals), but also holds a place for darker songs, graced by slide guitars and organs.

It’s almost worth disregarding the rest of this review, since it might as well just be over-exaggerated fan-boy praise for ‘We Don’t Eat’, arguably the finest track in this collection. There’s no other way to convey how great ‘We Don’t Eat’ is, other than by saying IT’S UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME. Like many of the songs on ‘Early In The Morning’, McMorrow’s lyrics borrow heavily from traditional folk themes, referencing the land and nature with almost Fleet Foxes levels of frequency. It’s nothing groundbreaking in this respect, but it’s still a fine debut, and worthy of a great deal of praise.