You know that feeling you get when you see or hear something beautiful, and it makes your eyes water and all you can say is “Oh…fuck.” Well, that pretty much happened when I went back and listened to Sons Of An Illustrious Father again. They come from New York, so I’m obviously going to reserve a lot of love for them. Certain places just produce the most amazing sound, and New York is easily one of them. The calibre of talent that has come from and comes from New York is just out of this world. It should be a crime to be this amazing.

Let’s start with a track from their self-titled album. A song that very nearly reduced me to tears because of how fucking brilliant it is. Moonshiner is incredible, literally out of this world. If Sofia’s vocals do not move you at all or make you feel it right in your gut; then you could be a souless being. It’s okay, keep listening- you’ll feel it soon enough. The power and fury in her voice is just like Janis Joplin’s, it is so raw and so damn passionate. When she hits those notes, my lord. It just goes right into you. It goes so deep into you, it delves right into your soul. It wakes you up. It makes you feel so alive.

I’d be inclined to just write about Sofia because her voice is one of the best voices I have heard in a long time. Maybe I’ll do it later, to stop myself from doing the things I should be doing.

One thing that I love about this band is that some of them play the banjo. They don’t overkill it like some bands (Mumford and whoever.) Basically, SOAIF are one of THE most underrated bands around and they posses suchgreat musicianship that is hard to find in a lot of bands nowadays. They have this grand sound that shoukd, by rights, make them one of the biggest bands around. However, we are constantly told to listen to meaningless drivel that is all over wanky radio stations. My solution? Don’t give into the hype the media feeds you, find something with spirit and passion- go listen to SOAIF.

Their music mixes the essence of Punk with a Folky vibe. It is truly magnificent. Their second full length album, One Body will be out 9th November. Going by the track, Glass Nor Stone; it is probably going to be one of the best things we’ll have heard this year. The band have a number of tracks now on their soundcloud page.