Jeff Lang

SOLO RELEASES

OTHER RELEASES

COMPILATIONS

1. Southern Highlands Daughter
2. Copper Mine
3. The Savannah Way
4. Five Letters
5. The House Carpenter
6. My Mother Always Talked to Me
7. The Vaults of Lattanzio
8. Mooncoin
9. Ghosting On My Mind
10. Night Draws In
11. Is All
12. Newman Town

Produced and mixed: Jeff Lang

Studios
Recorded at 30 Mill Studio

Engineers
Colin Wynn
Simon Bailey

Mastered at Deluxe Mastering by Tony "Jack The Bear" Mantz.

Chris Lambie - Forté Magazine

Just when you thought Jeff Lang couldn't get any better, along comes the masterpiece that is Half Seas Over. All elements combine to show why the Good Lord gave us music. This exceptional volume was prepared with more passion, skill and attention to detail than any "Idol" market could dream of.

Always the strident and assured guitarist, there's a new strength and conviction to be heard in his vocals. Continuing in the vein of recent albums, Lang's folklore represents the lovelorn, the lonely and the sinful. He loves a good yarn and ably matches borrowed traditional songs ("The House Carpenter", "My Mother Always Talked to Me") with his own portraits of hard-bitten lives. While cloaked in the gothic atmosphere of ancient cautionary tales, Lang's characters mostly inhabit a contemporary landscape: The trucks are like ants on the face of the mine ("Copper Mine"). The electric "Ghosting on My Mind" is a plaintive ode to a comrade at rest.

The album opens with simple eloquence set to an arresting rhythm:

I never read a poem truer
than what I felt there in your arms.

Lang the Wordsmith shines on "Five Letters":

So turn your head from my room where
I am spending my last hour lying
On the crow-black wings of Morphine shall I
Be out of this world a-flying.

Most tracks feature Lang solo or in duet with Grant Cummerford, however the sound is fulsome with Lang equally captivating on lap slide, Dobro, Chumbush, bottleneck, electric or acoustic guitars. He adds harmonium, clarinet and something called a Glissentar and produced the record himself. The artwork (Bulos McGurry), design (Myf Walker) and liner notes deserve vinyl LP dimensions. Cummerford's intrinsic work, on upright and fretless acoustic bass, is perfectly understated, but like the raising agent in a fine soufflé, you'd certainly notice its absence; employ the best speakers or headphones available. From the rollicking "Newman Town" with its town chorus to the gossamer strains of "Is All" (traces of an early Loudon Wainwright III), it's a seductive journey. I heard "No Country for Old Men" described simply as "a Cohen Brother's film". Half Seas Over is a Jeff Lang record ... is all ...