Dear Sister are a folk/country band from Toronto. Unfortunately, their new album, Silver Dagger, is a goodbye record, a musical fare-thee-well before each of the three core members (one of whom is Raven Shields, whose solo music we have featured previously) split up to follow their own separate paths. But why linger on the bad news? They have made a great record which proves a fitting send off and is sure to attract new fans, even if it is all rather too late.
The songs on Silver Dagger oscillate between quiet, reserved folk and sultry, swaggering country. Shields shares the vocals with Bri Salmena, and together they spin classic tales of love and loss. ‘Gold & Rose’ is a great example of such storytelling, a story of surprising depth which charts the lives of two lovers, full of richly detailed lines like: “got the rose from her mother taught her never to depend on others beauty queen years ago never stopped putting on a show and got the gold from her father, gave his wedding room to his daughter, left the girls on a Thursday night, found dead in the Friday light.”
‘Lucky Day’ is a beautifully delivered folk song, with delicate acoustic guitars and emotive vocals, while ‘Fox’ is all cocksure country confidence, “I wanna fight I wanna show my teeth / I wanna shake my head I wanna stomp my feet”. Opener ‘Wagon’ is patient and starkly alluring, with a thumping dream beat and weaving guitars. To me it sounds rather like a female-fronted version of fellow Canadians The Wooden Sky (particularly their 2012 album Every Child a Daughter, Every Moon a Sun). This is also noticeable on ‘Tavern’, a slow-burning rock song about a bar-room which builds into a frenetic climax with raspy, wailing vocals about the titular silver dagger.
This is a musical equivalent of the best Southern gothic. Big, filmic scenes flooded with human characters and vivid emotions, an album of attitude and pride and gentle kindness with an undercurrent of violence.
You can buy Silver Dagger now via the Dear Sister Bandcamp page.