Editorial Review:

Album Description:
Includes bonus DVD -- an exclusive concert and conversation with the band!

The Hard and The Easy is the ninth album from Great Big Sea, the Juno-nominated band that fuses Newfoundland traditional music with modern pop in a crowd-pleasing formula both heartfelt and vital. A pure force of nature - much like the ocean surge they take their name from - Great Big Sea's blend of instruments such as guitar, mandolin, bodhran, fiddle, and concertina, along with their vocal harmonies, revels in the melodies they create and the Newfoundland tunes they love. Their sound bellows joy. After almost thirteen years together, Great Big Sea is releasing a new kind of album, one that spans the spectrum of the Newfoundland songbook. This all-acoustic album of traditional and local songs is a first for singers and multi-instrumentalists Sean McCann, Alan Doyle, and Bob Hallett, but it's also a logical progression. Newfoundland music and Newfoundland culture are both their genesis and their raison d'etre.

Amazon.com:
A band that has made a name for itself since 1992 by updating the Celtic and, more specifically, Cape Breton tradition, Great Big Sea has long mixed poppy original tunes with traditionals goosed up to fit a more modern aesthetic. On the band's eighth album, The Hard And The Easy, the Canadians focus wholly on traditional Newfoundland folk tunes of all shapes and colors. All the music is acoustic and most (surprise!) have a seafaring theme to them. These are tunes that band-members grew up playing at home with family and friends, and there is no pretension or airs. The band¹s sense of humor comes through on gems like country-ish 'Concerning Charlie Horse' and 'The Mermaid,' while 'Graceful & Charming' is a sentimental ballad. The Breton tradition comes through strongest on 'Harbour Le Cou' and 'Tishialuk Girls Set.' Adding its musicianship and excellent vocals to the Celtic continuum, Great Big Sea has come up with one for and of the ages. ­ --Tad Hendrickson









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Disc 1:

1. Come and I Will Sing You (The Twelve Apostles)
2. Old Polina
3. The River Driver
4. The Mermaid
5. Captain Kidd
6. Graceful & Charming (Sweet Forget-Me-Not)
7. Concerning Charlie Horse
8. Harbour LeCou
9. Tishialuk Girls Set
10. French Shore
11. Cod Liver Oil
12. Tickle Cove Pond

Rating: - * Excellent CD ... This is a band I have newly discovered and boy am I glad I did. If you like witty folk music with an irish/scottish twist, then they are for you. The tongue in check songs make me smile while I am driving to work. A very nice CD! Rating: - * Freakin' AWESOME ... As always, Great Big Sea put out a fantastic record. This CD touches a little more on inland Newfoundland. It speaks of logging, horses falling through ice and river driving, to name a few things. Of course the record is still full of nautical themes, too. Rating: - * An all-acoustic, all-folky outing (no original material), very enjoyable ... The normal Great Big Sea album contains both original material written by the band and more traditional (mostly Newfoundland) folk songs. When preparing their latest album, according to interviews at the time, they had so much material they decided to split the album in two - one dedicated more to the new music (which, I guess, became the album "Something Beautiful") and one dedicated to all folk songs. While I like Great Big Sea's original material (at least, some of it!), I usually prefer the traditional stuff, so I was thrilled to have a whole album of it. After having listened to it many times, I am still happy with the album, and would recommend it to anyone interested in the genre of "Canadianised Celtic" music. For those that know the band and/or know the type of music they play, more description might be necessary. This album is quite low-key relative to their other outings - there are more "Donkey Riding" and "General Taylor" songs (i.e. acoustic or totally instrumentless) than there are "The Night Pat Murphy Died" or "Run Runaway". Perhaps this is the effect of the retirement of bass player Darrel Power from the band - the songs have little lower-end drive. However, it is not missed as the band manages to generate lots of energy when required. The slower songs are naturally a mix of sentimental (Sweet Forget Me Not, The French Shore) and bittersweet (Tickle Cove Pond, The River Driver), but the best songs on the album are those with some pep and some humour. They include: "The Old Polina," a song about whaling vessels racing between Ireland and St. John's; "The Mermaid" where a sailor falls in love with a mermaid but bemoans the fact that her bottom half is a tail "Concerning Charlie Horse," one of two (!) songs about a horse falling through the ice, where his drunken master and his buddies decide they need to haul him out of the pond and give him a proper burial "Captain Kidd," which I consider a Nova Scotian song (I grew up near Oak Island, supposedly home of Kidd's buried treasure), rather than a Newfoundlad one, but never mind - about the "misunderstood" pirate who recants his wicked ways just before his execution. Also included is an hour-long DVD with interviews and "live" performances of all the songs (many in Alan Doyle's living room). These live versions are by no means polished - Alan corrects Sean McCann's erroneous lyrics in one song, and changes the key half-way through in another ("Actually, this is supposed to be in E..."). All-in-all, a very enjoyable, if generally low-key, album from our favourite Newfie band. Rating: - * Brilliant ... Brilliant. It is back to the form shown in their early CDs and encapsulated in the "Road Rage Live" album. The track "The Mermaid" is wonderful. The accompanying DVD is excellent. As you can see I am a fan after seeing them live in Glasgow in 2001 with Runrig. Rating: - * A New Direction For the Boys! ... I was very much looking forward to this disk because GBS sang many of the songs on their tour this spring. And it is new ground. From the mysterious "12 Apostle" shanty to the bawdy "Mermaid" (which will explain the cover)to the eponymous "Graceful and Charming" (which I swear I have somewhere by Triona ni Dhomnail, but I can't prove it). All acoustic, all pure Newfoundland folk. I hate taking that 1 star away from my hard playing, hard working tundra troubadours. But there's just that little smidgeon of something that is not there, absent the audience and lights. I'll broke two exceptions: "Captain Kidd", full of energy and exuberance, and "River Driver", a shanty accompanied only by drum (It's done with spooky effectiveness in concert). Pure musical bliss. The rest of the CD is terrific compared to those of mortals, but simply lacks the additional GBS sparkle from their live sets.