Paper Thick Walls - A Thousand Novels

Paper Thick Walls are Eric Michaels - vocals, guitar, motif / Kate Schell - vocals, piano, trumpet / Roger Sherman- upright bass, Andrew Sabo- drums / Jacques René - fiddle, mandolin, guitar

Chicago's Paper Thick Walls play an indie brand of folk that is colored with the indie pop goings on in Canada as well as the more traditional folk elements of acoustic guitar, and the always cool upright bass. Eric and Kate sing songs about life that are sometimes point and counterpoint and at other times an agreement between the two on their debut album,  A Thousand Novels.



 The somber beauty of the strings on the track "NyQuil" coupled with Eric and Kate's emotive vocals make this my favorite track on this very strong album. The nice little melody underneath is in no hurry, and adds to laid back feel of this song.

"Desolate Place" feature quite a few bells to the great effect of making the song sound distant. This goes nicely with the lyrics. The music box player at the end of the song is a nice touch and a great way to wind down such a moody song.
 

The he said she said nature of songwriting doesn't always come off as good as it does on A Thousand Novels. Eric and Kate make for very compelling vocalists and have assemble a very strong band to back those beautiful songs. Go see them play these songs live on May 6th at Hideout for their record release show .

Thanks to August and the fine people's as Novo Enetertainment for the heads up on this album.