It’s all about the melody. It’s the melody that is the common thread that binds the members of Down By Avalon together. With a love of pop songs and a longing for a return to an energy and sound of a distant era, an era of pop music reminiscent of the sixties and English pop bands in particular, that inspired the band to create new music.

The song writing of Down By Avalon’s singer songwriter Alan Martin, born of English parents living in the western mountains of North Carolina, is an honest and pure homage to the pop music he grew up hearing as a kid. A steady diet of Beatles a dose of Jethro Tull and a discovery of the infectious sounds of XTC possessed him to pick up a guitar and start writing. At the same time, on the eastern coast of North Carolina in the long historical shadow of the lost colony bassist Dempsey Elks was consuming a constant AM radio buffet of Motown, Blues Rock and English Pop. Meanwhile drummer David Needham was playing football, percussion in school orchestras and military bands and horn in brass bands in his native land of Manchester, England. After an immersion in American roots music, blues, rock, country and some music of the nineties…the eighteen nineties, he was introduced to what would become the band Down By Avalon.

The album Down By Avalon is the result of a collaboration between Down By Avalon and Dan Bryk. Dan’s arranging and production took the songs and sound to a new level creating a framework for the songs to express their influences and grow into something original. During the recording Dan’s piano playing added dimension and depth to the songs and the organ and keyboard parts added texture that allows the vocal and melody to stand out.

A review of the record in the January issue of Performer magazine:

Chapel Hill, N.C. quartet Down By Avalon steer clear of modern bells and whistles and find solace of the simplicity of the ‘60s and the ‘70s for its debut. Like last summer’s next-big-things Peter Bjorn and John and I’m From Barcelona, Down By Avalon seek to let relatively unembellished melodies do the talking, and the end results reflect a deep admiration for traditional pop music. However, though the band prides itself in its ability to write classic pop music, the real strength lies in the warm, folk, almost hippie vibe it projects into and onto the listener.
It is felt within the first few notes singer Alan Martin drips out over the album’s opener “Yes She Said.” An earthier-sounding Cat Stevens, Martin’s wise, soulful voice hugs this song (one of the album’s best) with the same sage affection as he does in other tracks like “Stand Me Down” and “All the Crazy Things.”
The good vibrations are not merely picked up by Martin’s voice, however. While the disc’s instrumentation is sparse, it is never hollow, and little adornments such as an organ in “Everything I’ll Ever Need” and a far-out time-change in “I Am Not” are subtle enough for the music of Down By Avalon to hold its own without overpowering the singer.
Down By Avalon’s debut stands as a reminder that music is not merely about the arrangement of notes or words, but about the feelings it brings when listened to. (Urban Myth Recording Collective)

-Melinda Hanna

http://www.performermag.com/sep.recordedreviews.0801.php

More DBA music at:

http://www.reverbnation.com/downbyavalon