ROOTSTIME.DE
(this has been google translated from Dutch.. so..)
The platinum and gold vocal cords of singer Keri Latimer for the opening track “Dear Sister” (see video) of the new album “Citizen Alien” from the duo 'Leaf Rapids' is the first thing that strikes us when we first make this disc run in the CD player. Together with her husband Devin Latimer, Keri forms the folk and Americana duo "Leaf Rapids" located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
In the ten songs on "Citizen Alien" the duo looks back on the ancient history of the family of Keri, a story that extends over the past two centuries from Japan to Iceland and has settled down after a turbulent journey across the oceans in the heart of the prairie in Winnipeg in Canada. The duo brings these stories to very beautiful melodic music, as a result of which you as a listener are immediately grabbed by songs like "There They Go", "Caragana Switch" and the supercatchy album title track "Citizen Alien".
Before embarking on the Leaf Rapids adventure with her husband Devin, they were both part of the Canadian alt.country quartet "Nathan". For the important role of producer for this album, the couple chose multi-instrumentalist Rusty Matyas, who also played keyboards and trumpet on the songs. Keri plays the acoustic guitar and two-antenna "theremin", Devin uses the bass guitar, Bill Western plays the pedal steel and Joanna Miller plays the matching beats behind the drums.
The country waltz "Virginia" can also immediately count on our full approval and the hymnal daddy song "Barbershop Shears" invites you to sing along to the tones of a bombardon among others. For a moment it becomes very emotional and haunting in the short "spoken word" number "Helen's Waltz", a lullaby that Keri dedicated as a tribute to her mother, who died last year.
We are now only two songs away from the inevitable end of this beautiful album, but that is much easier to digest if those two songs are as beautiful as "Parliament Gardens" and the closing song "Twenty Storeys High" accompanied by Hammond organ. Feel free to take it from us: "Citizen Alien" from "Leaf Rapids" is an embankment of an album that we will certainly often be playing at the (valsam) home.
“What a fantastic record has been created by the Canadian duo ‘Leaf Rapids’, an husband and wife couple of musicians consisting of Devin and Keri Latimer. The touching history of the anchestors of Keri during the previous two centuries has been translated into ten great songs on their album ‘Citizen Alien’, all being supported by the golden and platinum layered voice of Keri.“ – www.rootstime.be