Review: Great North, 'Up In Smoke'

The follow-up to 2013 NZ Folk Album of The Year Halves is a challenge Auckland outfit Great North has embraced in effortless style, Up In Smoke again revealing the lyrical strength of songwriter and singer Hayden Donnell, who ranges from the existential (Up In Smoke, Somebody Else's Lord, Sound of the Sea) to the quietly personal (One Scarlet Morning).

The key to all this is in the range of stylings, this excellent band dipping into rustic a Capella (I Was Gold), piano-driven rock (Up In Smoke) and stripped-back country (I'm Not Asking), all the while managing to avoid the obvious or trite.

Single download: The River Sets The Course
For those who like: Okkervil River, Neil Young

- Shane Gilchrist