On more than one occasion, Tom Prilesky, one half of the Vancouver-based duo that makes up the Wind Whistles, croons and weaves words eerily like Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy. This isn't too strange, seeing as their debut album, Window Sills, is a positively folksy affair. Prilesky drops lyrics like "sail my ship to Africa", "I'll meet you out on the train", and similarly vagabond-like vocals that echo themes in many a Decemberist song. Where these folktale similarities end, Prilesky and fellow-Wind Whistle Liza Moser branch out on a risky limb, take some friends along for the ride, and hold on tight.
Window Sills is a veritable jam session as the Wind Whistles invite various talents to sing along, compose and strum, resulting in a compilation of simple songs that sound like friends making music in somebody's basement. Scratch that: Friends making music in a rustic cabin, on an island, surrounded by wild deer and a wooded glen. When night falls, they all keep jamming, a melancholy ballad emerges here and there (the captivating "River"), and in the morning friendships are stronger and good prospers over evil ("Good friends won't rip you off" is so feel-good it hurts).
The reality is that the disc was mixed and recorded in a local studio, but you can hear the rich fantasies behind the tunes. These are songs that tell stories-solid harmonies with a diversity that could only be achieved by having eighteen performers rally together on twelve tight tracks.
Katie Nanton – Discorder Magazine Feb. 2008 issue
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