Photo by Chad Cosper
Review: The Imaginaries reach dizzying new heights with ‘Fever’
The folk duo knocks it out of the park with their new album.
“We got a whole lotta living to do,” The Imaginaries crow in the defiant “Whole Lotta Livin’.” That sentiment courses through the duo’s new album, Fever, which finds them reaching for the stars with a more dynamic, yet cohesive, sound. Maggie McClure and Shane Henry, who caught our attention five years ago, prove that resilience is something gained through hardship on 12 songs that celebrate their emergence from darkness. “This album is about breakthrough,” McClure shares. “Not because we’ve figured everything out, but because we’ve come through something.”
There’s an unsettling darkness threaded into the album’s stylistic tapestry. “Crossroads,” serving as their musical peak, and “Buzzard’s Roost,” a somber, midnight ride out in the desert, quake with unshakable and unexplainable terror, also evidenced with the title cut. It’s musically speaking, of course, a black-tar mood that drains from their fingertips. These moments reflect a necessary contrast to the album’s glistening gemstones, including “I Knew It Was You” and the fluttering “Little By Little,” a piano and string number that feels equally downcast. Their voices drip with the sorrow and pain of pushing through troubling times, feeling the weight of the world pushing down on their swollen shoulder blades.
McClure and Henry operate with hurricane-like force. Their careers so far have been bolstered by some of the most evocative folk music, but Fever feels wholly different. It’s as though the pair is stepping into the sunlight for the very first time. “We’re two birds on a wire getting tired,” the duo sings in “Breaker,” a rhythmic centerpiece. “Riding That High” perfectly captures the buzz of rolling your window down and going for a drive on the highway, escaping the hustle and bustle for something freer and more unruly. By the time “Here for You” and “Lucy Ones,” two fragile performances they clutch in their hands, you feel every possible emotion throbbing behind your ribcage.
The Imaginaries light a match with Fever. Everything is working at a top-notch pace, as they zig-zag across a musical landscape that demonstrates their true potential. If you liked the band before, you’re gonna love them now.
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