Dustin Kensrue’s collection of acoustic covers performed live is awesome. I wish I hadn’t missed it last year, because it probably would have made my end-of-the-year list.
His voice and performance is so personal, so authentic, and so wonderful that I didn’t even realize I was listening to one of my favorite Cold War Kids songs until he was a good third of the way through his cover of “Hospital Beds.” His choices of songs are terrific, too, because he skips between songs one person would know to songs that same person would probably never hear–like, for example, I would never buy a Lorde album. But now I love the song “Buzz Cut Season.” And, of course, there are the songs everybody knows and everybody covers, like Radiohead’s Creep. But he does a good job there, too.
Great record.
