Deb Talan and Steve Tannen couldn't write a bad song if they tried. As the folk-pop duo The Weepies, the two have found their groove with a comforting synthesis of husky vocals and springy guitar that makes any combination of words and melodies shine like gold.
"Hideaway," the title track from The Weepies' new album, sticks to the folksy sound of the duo's early releases, but it also features Talan's intoxicating voice at its best. The rock-driven lullaby is about the high and low, the bright and the dark: The light of the night sky, "a canvas of a billion suns," fades with day, when the brilliance of our own sun drowns out everything except "the winking of Venus and Mars," the celestial lovers. Closer to earth, though, are people in search of their own way to shine: "I'll make my own way in the wide world / Just know I don't want to wander too far." Even if "Hideaway" doesn't wander too far from The Weepies' formula, it's a formula that works.
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This story originally ran on May 14, 2008.
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