Every now and again I like to catch something that falls outside of my Metal and Hard Rock comfort zone and I say this for a couple of different reasons. The first is mainly because I do like much more than the stuff that I report about over on PiercingMetal and the second is because you get to enjoy the broader musical geography that is available to you in a city like New York. You might have heard me say this before in any number of music reviews, but this city is a cornucopia of absolutely amazing music to listen to and I suggest that you give some stuff a chance when possible.

That said I recently was invited by a friend of mine in the business to see his band called Harper’s Fellow. They are a Country Rock act for all intents and purposes and there is a lot of sweet vocal harmonies over tasty musical riffs. The four piece band is fronted by Cortney Metzler who sings most of the leads and plays acoustic guitar, Brendan Smith on bass, Eric Castellazzo on guitar and Alexander Ford who keeps it all in motion from the drum kit. The gig would be at The Bowery Electric which I have been to on a number of PiercingMetal adventures before but in the downstairs part of the club. Tonight’s Harper’s Fellow gig would be in the rear of the club’s main floor, a spot called the Map Room. It’s smaller for sure but seems an interesting spot to deliver ones music. The band set up quickly and was delivering their sweet and solid sounds faster than I expected but most of their supporters were in place which was a good thing. I had to say that I was liking what I heard and it was a definitely positive change of musical pace for me. They only performed about nine tunes which I have listed below and the ones that stood out the most for me was their “Cadillac” original and the cover of the Lumineers. Of course there were other highlights but I was very new to their material and had not yet locked in on as much of it as I would have liked. Cortney has a really nice voice and the rest of the guys bring this material to larger life with the harmonies that they add in. Though I was a newcomer, I was finding my foot tapping more often than it was not and if I caught onto a particular chorus I sang along at a much lower volume so’s not to have people wondering where the dying animal was 🙂 (I’m kidding of course).

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