CD Review: Canada's Dala 'Everyone Is Someone'

Dala

Everyone Is Someone

Campus Music/Lenz Entertainment

The Ontario-based folk duo, Dala, is taking the charts by storm with their award-winning album, Everyone Is Someone. The contempoary folk group is similar in sound to Shawn Colvin, Susan Aglukark, and Sarah MacLachlan. In fact, "Lonely Girl" is uniquely Dala, but it seems like a slightly stripped-down folk song ("Building A Mystery" comes to mind) in the vein of Sarah MacLachlan. The mix of folk instrumentation and pop tunes contains a weighty amount of instruments, including keyboards, mandolin, guitar, piano, drums, bass, harp, cello, banjo, strings, cow bell, hand claps, and something called icicle keyboards. The songs are tender, sweet, and catchy. The English-lyric songs describe love, happiness, Northern culture, and poignant stories backed by superb vocal harmonies and folksy instrumentation with a flair for neo-folk leanings on "Northern Lights," "Younger," and "Levi Blues." Dala is dala-lightful in every sense of the word. ~ Matthew Forss