Honey Harper - Starmaker

Honey Harper is the current project from Atlanta-based William Fussell. Fussell spent the past few years as part of Mood Ring and Promise Keeper, but Honey Harper marks his first time dabbling in the country genre. The results are incredible.

Starmaker is a gorgeous alt-country record and one of the best debut albums this year. Written and recorded over the past three years in Paris, Budapest, and London, Starmaker feels like a grand achievement. Every song is layered with gorgeous instrumentation, including pedal steel, ethereal synthesizers, and strings (recorded by the Hungarian Studio Orchestra). The production is incredible, the songwriting is top-notch, and Fussell's vocals are beautiful.

I hesitate to call Starmaker an alt-country record because there's so much more to it than that. "In Light of Us", "The Day It Rained Forever", and "Tired Tower" are dreamy, Gram Parsons-like cosmic country songs, while "Something Relative", "Suzuki Dreams", and the album's title track closer are beautiful chamber pop-leaning ballads, awash with strings and incredibly emotional vocals. "Tomorrow Never Comes" could very well be an unreleased Eagles hit and the ambient keyboards sprinkled throughout the album seem very Brian Eno-influenced.

Starmaker is a fantastic debut for Honey Harper and I can't praise it enough. I can't wait to see how Honey Harper continues to revitalize country music in the years to come.