Aerial Ruin-Valleys of the earth

Vendlus
2011

Aerial Ruins is a one man accoustic folk band. It is the project of Erik Moggridge who has been in Old Grandad and Epidemic. Much of the music is done on the acoustic guitar. This works well in that Moggridge has a strong handle on the stroytelling element of songwriting. This approach works particularly well with the music because you can really absorb and hear both very well. The production also has to be noted because the tones that are brought out of the guitar have a very a very deep quality. This frequently reminds me of of hearing say late 60's-early 70's albums and I mean albums as in vinyl. The sound quality is a large part of the appeal of this album. The sound is very rich indeed. The down side is that with one instrument dominating the sound there isn't a great deal of variation in the sounds. The writing and playing is enough to make me enjoy the album, but the lack of variety means it's probably not an album I would want to listen to all the time. Plus everything is very slow and that may not appeal to everyone, but I actually took to it immediately. A powerful and well-crafted album.