Joel Camille impresses on new album, "Folk Against the Machine IV: Holy River"
Working tirelessly over the past six months has certainly paid off because Joel Camille’s newest album Folk Against the Machine IV: Holy River is a winner in our eyes. Keep reading for a closer look into the record, as well as a background on this emerging artist.
With over 25 years experience playing, Joel Camille is a Queensland-based songwriter and performer that’s crafted something wonderfully cohesive through 12 songs on Folk Against the Machine IV: Holy River. Taking influences from the obvious like Rage Against the Machine, there’s also so many other classic folk inspiration and a heaps worth of originality flowing through the album. We’ve more than enjoyed our listen and know for a fact that everyone out there will too.
Through an hour of brand new songs and staples that Camille has playing for the last 10 years, there’s one consistency throughout it all, and that’s the “river motif”. Says Camille on its background, “the river motif represents love, sorrow, spirituality and power. During the writing and recording process, my community was devastated by a dramatic flood event”. Ultimately he’s paying homage lyrically to the catastrophic event, but in a breathtakingly beautiful way that will have these lasting memories forever. While the instrumentation from beginning to end is ear candy to the acoustic music lover, the focal point really of the record is how each song evokes so much emotion through its deep themes and complexities.
Considering that this is the fourth iteration of the Folk Against the Machine series he’s been putting out, it looks like we’re going to have to go back and do some musical homework for the first three that we missed. We sincerely love and adore the folk style, and while we see it as a criminally underrated genre as a whole, that’s all the reason for everyone else to give it a go. Tracks like “Plains of Oblivion” and “Laugh” are ones we’ll be coming back to, but it’s really the mood of it all that we loved the most.
While we wait on a possible fifth to head our way, go ahead and check out the links below to listen to this, follow along, and to keep up with all major news on the way.
Listen to Folk Against the Machine IV: Holy River
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