Ryan Doyle - The Crowd Train Takes The Form

I’ve been a fan of the New Jersey label Monotone Records for awhile. Got a chance to listen to some of Ryan Doyle’s songs off of his The Crowd’ Train Takes The Form CD-R a few days ago. I’d heard some songs off the “Sparrows” tape and this collection of songs continued the nice folky vibe that was on it. The mood of the tracks is very pastoral and thoughtful, like a lot of tracks from the label (notably Kevin Huelbig Jr.’s stuff). At times it is uptempo and melodic like The Shins or Belle and Sebastian, but it usually comes across more understated.

If some of the songs are reminiscient of the great Pants Yell!, maybe that’s because at least one of the songs is actually written by them - “The Gate’s Open, We’re Going In”.

You can listen to the third track on the disc, The Traveling Song at the Monotone site. Pretty acoustic guitar picking caressed by quiet salt and pepper shakers, with Ryan’s voice just ambling along at walking speed. Perfect summer night music…

Sample tracks from Ryan Doyle:
The Traveling Song - The Crowd’ Train Takes the Form CD-R
Chandeliers - Campaign to Kill the Sparrows cassette

by Bryan