Cicada Rhythm are Going Places

Despite being rightly identified as two of the Athens area’s most talented young champions of Americana, Cicada Rhythm’s Andrea DeMarcus and Dave Kirslis serve up more than amped-up country songs on Everywhere I Go, out April 27th on New West Records.

That’s not to say that Southern roots music isn’t represented heavily. There are clear nods to folk-rock (“Roses By My Side”), country-rock (“Out Alive”), and other hyphenated subgenres that resulted from hippies discovering their home state or region’s rich musical past. Hippies is said in a loving way here. They made bluegrass awesome in the ’70s, and now something similar is happening for a broader range of Southern music traditions.

Elsewhere on the album, indie rock flair (“Shake Up” and “Do I Deserve It Yet”) provides modern reference points. Ideally, these songs attract listeners outside of roots circles, introducing them to the rest of the albums’ source material.

It all works because both DeMarcus and Kirslis have dynamic singing voices. That’s to say that before roots became all the rage, either could’ve sounded at home as traditionalists going against the grain like a Neko Case or as part of someone’s snooty performance art project. Fortunately, the time is right for the duo to excel at the sort of outside-the-box folk interpretations that’ve made them, Jim White and others near Athens part of a larger roots revival scene.

Photo by Jason Huffer.