Bowerbirds

A band with a guy who sings and strums prettily and a girl who also sings and plays accordion doesn’t necessarily have to mess around with good songwriting or nuanced arrangements to get a crowd basking in its precious glow these days, but North Carolina’s Bowerbirds go ahead and do that stuff anyway. Led by Philip Moore and Beth Tacular, the group’s gentle acoustic wanderings don’t necessarily aim to evoke the old days of Americana or psychedelia so much as a soft-focus memory of a childhood nature walk. The band’s new album, The Clearing, pairs its most vivid and polished recordings with a lyrical eye toward earthbound concerns and the open meadows of Moore’s warm tenor.

Updated 03/09/2012