Sydney based Alt. Country combo The April Family return with their first release in 18 months, with “I’m Only Sad”. The release sees a collaboration with their country music brothers. Michael Carpenter & The Banks Brothers.
The new track has been a long time coming. It was written during a flurry of post lockdown activity for writers Michael Carpenter and Kylie Whitney back in 2021. “I’m Only Sad” is yet another departure for The April Family. It’s a classic, (mostly) acoustic country ballad, anchored by the beautiful piano playing of Casey Atkins, the acoustic guitar and upright bass of Carpenter framing singer Kylie Whitney’s plaintive country soul lead vocal performance, with Carpenter taking a verse and singing the harmony to emphasise two sides of the story in the tale of post breakup longing. Zane Banks on lead acoustic guitar and Jy-Perry Banks on pedal steel take care of all of the colour throughout the song, weaving in between the melody to fill out the aural story. Atkins, Carpenter and Zane Banks provide the exquisite backing vocals in the bridge. Carpenter says of the song “We’d wanted to do a collaboration between all of us for some time, and while it would have been easy to do a ‘standard uptempo country thing’, we all feel this song gives us a chance to show how sensitive the two ensembles can be in their understanding of musical storytelling.” The song also is a bittersweet end of chapter for The April Family, with lead guitarist Casey Atkins recently announcing a desire to step aside from the recording band. He will continue to play any live shows possible, and contribute to sessions when he and the band can make it work. Kylie Whitney speaks about the next chapter for The April Family and says “we have loved Casey’s contributions through all of our work, and he is always welcome in what we do. He is part of our family. But we look forward to opening ourselves up to fruitful creative times, embracing Michael’s many projects, and maybe even doing some solo projects of my own.” Comments are closed.
|