''The Weatherman'' is

Gregory Alan Isakov Gregory Alan Isakov (born October 19, 1979) is a South African-born singer-songwriter currently based in Boulder, Colorado. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1986 and he was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Isakov's mus ...

's third full-length album, released in 2013. The album was recorded in solitude outside the quiet mountain town of

Nederland, Colorado Nederland (, ) is a statutory town located near Barker Meadow Reservoir in the foothills of southwest Boulder County, Colorado, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census it had a population of 1,445. History Nederland was established in ...

over the course of a year and a half. ''The Weatherman'' peaked at number 102 on the

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of art ...

albums chart during a two-week stay on the chart.

Background

Explaining the new album, Isakov said, "To me, the idea of a weatherman is really powerful. There's a guy on television or on the radio telling us the future, and nobody cares. It's this daily mundane miracle, and I think the songs I chose are about noticing the beauty in normal, everyday life."

Nathaniel Rateliff Nathaniel David Rateliff (born October 7, 1978) is an American singer and songwriter based in Denver, Colorado, whose influences are described as folk, Americana and vintage rhythm & blues. Rateliff has performed with a backing band called the ...

provided background vocals.

Reception

Simon Holland of Folk Radio wrote of the album – "There is an overall consistency of approach. This is an album of gentle swells, intimate voices, with ripples of grace notes and heavenly choirs adding to the emotional ebb and flow. It’s a gently paced 41 and a bit minutes of music that is quietly beguiling, rather than attention seeking, but when you do pay proper intent, the rewards are many." Jedd Ferris from ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' said, "From start to finish, the album keeps an even-keel mood, but in an age of ubiquitous Americana genre mashing, it's a welcome change of pace."

Track listing

Personnel

– vocals, guitars, banjo, piano, organ, keyboards, drums, ukulele,

pedal steel The pedal steel guitar is a console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all steel guitars, it can p ...

*Jamie Mefford – drums, god noises, background vocals *Phil Baker – cello, background vocals *Jeb Bows – violin, viola, mandolin, background vocals *James Han – piano, organ *Bonnie May Paine – saw, washboard, background vocals *

– background vocals *Julie Davis – background vocals *Natalie Tate – background vocals *Reed Foehl – background vocals *John Grigsby –

upright bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

, electric bass *Wil Schlatmann –

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

*Reyn Ouwehand –

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

, piano ;Production *Gregory Alan Isakov, Jamie Mefford – executive production *Gregory Alan Isakov, Jamie Mefford, Reyn Ouwehand (on "Second Chances") – engineering *David Glasser – mastering

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weatherman 2013 albums