Bands often set their stall out when they decide on a name, and Folk Bitch Trio suggests a refreshing directness in a genre that can so often be overwrought. It’s by no means a misnomer; on their debut album, Heide Peverelle, Jeanie Pilkington and Grace Sinclair cast a sharp and often acerbic eye over affairs of the heart with a wisdom that belies their age – the three are still in their early twenties. It is little wonder that Jagjaguwar, the label that was the launchpad for Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen, was so keen to sign them.
The emotional literacy and deftness with melody associated with those artists can be found in abundance on ‘Now Would Be A Good Time’, but perhaps a closer frame of reference would be The Staves. The members of Folk Bitch Trio are not blood-related, but you’d never know on the basis of their magnificent three-part harmonies, which have a richness and complexity typically only heard from bands that literally share DNA. Those harmonies form the record’s backbone, lending a sense of sweeping drama to vivid, wittily drawn portraits of disastrous situationships (‘The Actor’), hopeless infatuation (‘Moth Song’) and yearning from the back of the tour van (‘Mary’s Playing the Harp’).
That last song, the album’s closer, is set against the backdrop of a drive across regional Australia, and it’s difficult not to be put in mind of Picnic at Hanging Rock when listening to ‘Now Would Be A Good Time’. The record is sprinkled with strangeness, its dark atmosphere elevating Folk Bitch Trio above a lot of their indie folk peers. Sometimes, you can put your finger on it, as with ‘That’s All She Wrote’, which unspools an eerie lyrical metaphor. Other times, it’s subtler, like on the ghostly a cappella track ‘I’ll Find a Way’ or Anita Clark’s dreamy violin on ‘Sarah’, among other songs.
And that’s fitting: this is one of those debut records so accomplished that it’s as if it’s just fallen out of the ether, fully formed. By blending melody, harmony and palpable atmosphere, Folk Bitch Trio have created a masterful debut that lingers long after the final notes ring out.
