Reviewers are saying: âraucous energy and smart lyrics â, âsimply enjoyableâ, âThese are songs as likely to get you to sing along as to give you a lump in the throatâ. Devil Days are original tunes from an all-female string band based in Brooklyn, NY.

11 MP3 Songs in this album (33:31) !
Related styles: COUNTRY: Country Folk, FOLK: Appalachian Folk

People who are interested in Bill Monroe Hazel Dickens The Carter Family should consider this download.


Details:
The Havens are are all-girl string band from Brooklyn New York who sing original songs about love, liquor, Brooklyn, God, the devil and everything in between. Their songs harken back to the sounds of the deep south.


Formed in December 07, 'Devil Days' is their first album.

The Havens are:

Katie Blankenship: guitar, banjo, vocals
(Mama Smiled, I'll Never Marry,Devil Days,
Where Are You Now, Garden Home)

Rachael Benjamin: autoharp, guitar, vocals
(Electricity, Brooklyn Waltz, Workin Man,
Heart That's Slowly Breaking)

Ami: fiddle, guitar, harmony vocals
(Gowanus Canal, Twilight Song)

Beth Price: upright bass, harmony vocals



Review by Rob Weinert-Kendt (Time Out, Village Voice)

"Freak folk, neo-folk, folk-rockâwhat ever happened straight-up folk, minus the hybrids and hyphens? Youâll find a heartening answer on âDevil Days,â the debut album by The Havens, a Brooklyn-based quartet whose original songs arenât willowy journal entries set to finger-picked chords but true-blue slabs of old-time Americana, performed with an unabashedly twangy string-band sound that owes as much to the Weaversâ pristine harmonizing as to the Carter Familyâs rough-hewn country warbling.

Lest you find yourself lulled into nostalgia by this all-female groupâs dulcet vocals and warm, bright acoustic sound, the lyrics will keep you on your toes. Songwriters Katie Blankenship, Rachael Benjamin, and Ami have a lot of fun painting contemporary urban pictures within the traditionalist frame: A pot seller is busted with a cheery yodel along the banks of the âGowanus Canal,â and the sunny feminist anthem âIâll Never Marryâ contains a couplet you wonât hear at the Grand Ole Opry: âWhen I was a child, my mother said/Donât get pregnant and please donât wed.â

Highlights include the jaunty fiddle tune âWorkin Man,â the painfully intimate âHeart Thatâs Slowly Breaking,â and the full-throated lament âGarden Home,â which, like the best country or folk tunes, renders bittersweet themes in blazing primary colors. These are songs as likely to get you to sing along as to give you a lump in the throat."



Review by Zubin Soleimany:

"If, from the sight of them, you take the Havens as another, all-bespectacled, all-girl New York-country band, think again. Their uniform myopia aside, the Havens' original folk-country music incorporate whatever it needs stylistically and the band abides by an elastic sense of "traditional" music that gives their debut album, "Devil Days," a wide expressive range. From driving numbers like the Appalachian-rooted story-song, "Electricity" and first-wave feminist renunciation, "I'll Never Marry," which they sing with a scout troupe-like earnestness, the album grows deeper with more internal numbers like"The Brooklyn Waltz" and the haunting and tender ballad, "Twilight Song."

The album has a couple kinks, sure enough, but these are more than made up for by how simply enjoyable it is. And no song is more enjoyable than the original tune, "Gowanus Canal," an old-timey glorification of outer borough John Hardy types and their illicit doings around the Mississippi of the 718. By the time the first seemingly-Brooklynese "Yo!" actually breaks out into "del-ay-ee-hoo," you and your hipster friends will have been too seduced by their raucous energy and smart lyrics to care that you are, in fact, listening to yodeling."



The Havens gig regularly in New York City. Some of their usual stomping grounds are: The Parkside, the Sidewalk Cafe, Banjo Jims, Freddy's Bar and Backroom (Park Slope, Brooklyn), and some of the favorite Williamsburg haunts like Spike Hill and Trash Bar.


Contact The Havens at: thehavens.brooklyn@gmail.com