MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: WAVESONG

Here's a Montreal folk trio with a debut album, although individually they have lots of varied experience. Main writer Bruce Jackson has put in lots of miles in the Quebec rock and folk world, Elisabeth Rousseau is a classical/choral vocalist, while Jane Critchlow has sung Celtic, jazz, blues and rock. So it's your basic bilingual, multi-genre, multi-voiced group that could only happen in Montreal. In this case, they found each other teaching classes, and discovered that they loved singing together.

The opening folk tune, Take It With You, starts a cappella and you get the point right away. This trio has one of those beautiful vocal blends that immediately warms your heart, and stays with you long after. Wisely, they play to their strength, and the harmonies flow right through each song, two or three voices the norm, a single singer only heard for a line or two, before the others chime in. Jackson's songs move from style to style, matching the group's experience, a little Celtic here, contemporary sounds in some, more traditional elsewhere, but all can be called harmony folk, even their cover of Seals and Crofts' Summer Breeze. That's as close to pop as they venture, but still a good indicator of the type of beauty they present in their material.

Dig a little deeper, and Jackson turns out to be a strong lyricist, his Down In The Valley River an effective number about having to move away from family for work, set on the Quebec-Vermont border. The closer, The Company I Keep, is a strong East Coast-styled lyric (says the East Coast native, meaning it as high praise), and I know a few Newfoundland folk groups who would love to have that one in their name. The group keeps the instrumentation spare and acoustic, Jackson providing all the guitar and percussion, with only a little guest piano sneaking in. When you have voices like they do, you don't want to cover them up.