HUMAN
HIGHWAY – Moody Motorcycle (suicidesqueeze.net)
Human Highway is a Canadian super duo featuring
solo indie songwriter Jim Guthrie and frontman
of Islands Nick Thornbury. Human Highway takes
a departure from much of Nick Thornbury’s
electronic stylings with Islands and leans to
a more folk sound. Together Thornbury and Guthrie
have combined forces and written 12 new songs
for the debut Moody Motorcycle.
At first look you may laugh at the cover art.
I don’t know if it is supposed to be a
joke making fun of some artists taking themselves
too seriously, or maybe they are taking themselves
too seriously? Or perhaps some reference I am
too young and dumb to understand. Either way
the cover made me curious to see what this folk
duo would do.
Upon putting the CD in and hiding the cover
somewhere under a towel, the album begins with
“The Sound”. This song combines
gentle guitars with a calm backbeat and really
solid vocal melodies on the chorus. The singing
on this first track really helps make this song
a nice introduction to a mellow blend of pop
melodies and folk charm.
As the album continues, many of the songs follow
a calm sound but nothing really pops out to
grab you. One of the songs that did grab me
was “Sleep Talking,” but I think
this was only due to its heavy resemblance to
Modest Mouse’s “Sleep Walking”.
Listening to the choruses back to back made
me wonder if it was done on purpose or if it's
just a coincidence that they sound almost exactly
alike, besides the ‘T’ replacing
the ‘W’.
From front to back the album is nice to sit
back and relax to. These two Canadian fellas
don’t seem to do anything new or exciting
or make songs that make this a must have. The
vocals are a really nice match to the calm lo-fi
folk. The guitars don’t carry much melody
but the vocals really do. This album is a good
album to throw on if you are looking for something
relaxing, but not if you are looking to replace
that worn out Islands record. – Patrick
Dowd
CD Reviews 
