Word Of Mouth Chorus – Rivers Of Delight: American Folk Hymns From The Sacred Harp Tradition

This is one of those recordings by a bunch of educated secular city singers who don't quite nail the vibe you want, even if you don't know you want it. Not sayin' one has to be religious to make this music work, but there's no overwhelming sense of the sublime in this recording. It feels disconnected; it doesn't lack spirit, but it doesn't feel haunted by the holy spook per se either. Its precision and humility aren't problems—you can tell they're enjoying themselves and that they care about the tunes—but its level of domesticated liberal sensibility doesn't favor the material. To their credit, they did manage to avoid vibratto, which tends mostly to be a killjoy when errantly applied to this kind of polyphonic hymnody, and is a common mistake made by people approaching it from the sheet, including on such project recordings. But while there's no need for a group to be sloppy, it's better sloppy than like this. There are a number of records somewhat similar, from around the same time, and against those one is better off seeking recordings of congregations more immersed in the tradition. That said, due to social revival of the tradition in many cities in the past few decades, there are more recent recordings of secular groups that do a better job, and you can probably even find some for free on bandcamp etc. Basically, this isn't bad; it's archivally interesting and has some kinda merit in its effort, but I wouldn't put it on to rock out or zone in or anythin. I can't remember if it includes any rare, unearthed tunes and the music for them, not otherwise in current print, but those can be reasons to pick up some of these project LPs if one is a shape note aficionado or whatever.