by Lime Blue Cube

Created on: August 06, 2008

Fortune's Favour, released June 24th, 2008, is the 10th album from Canadian folk-rock band Great Big Sea. The first experience I had with one of the songs off this album was in July of 2007, when Great Big Sea performed an outdoor concert, and played a song called "Straight To Hell." It definitely fell more on the rock side of folk-rock. Not to mention the fact that it didn't sound like anything you would expect from a folk band, a song about making deals with the devil and the hard core life of a rock star. I loved it. Sure enough, Straight to Hell turned out to be track number 14, when Fortune's Favour was released almost a year later.

Fortune's favour is similar to Great Big Sea's previous album Something Beautiful* in that it has more of a pop feeling than some of their more traditional record like The Hard and the Easy. It gets its name from a line in track 3, England. "Should we find Fortune's Favour, and be spared form the gale, we would live off honest labour, with our hearts as big as sails." The instrumental bit in that particular track is an amazing little melody, and it perfectly complements the mood of the song, about what old English settlers may have felt as they moved to Newfoundland.

The first single officially released, along with a video, was track number 2, Walk on the Moon. It talks about how great an experience it would have been to the first astronauts who set foot on the moon, as well as using as a metaphor to tell the listener to try his/her hardest to achieve their wildest goals. This song is a rarity as it features lead singer Alan Doyle on the piano, along with some hand-bells, neither of which one usually hears of a Great Big Sea track.

The opening track of this album, Love Me Tonight, is the tale of a yearning lover wishing to see his soul mate after a long time apart. It features some intense drums at the beginning of the song by drummer Kris McFarlane, which are a nice interlude to this song.

The sixth song on Fortune's Favour, Oh Yeah, is a short and punchy one, that seems almost hard core mindless rock and roll. The liner notes for this song say just one line-"This is Alan's fault." Alan Doyle's voice goes down what seems two octaves for an extremely low sound that create quite the rock effect. It is definitely a song to listen to when doing something active, and you'll have to restrain yourself from singing along.

Other notable tracks on this album are Dance Dance, about a seventeen year old guy taking his love out on a date; Here and Now, a song that tells you to make the most of the time you've got. The last mention goes to Company of Fools, a song that talks about how the clowns of society are sometimes the smartest and wisest people.

Fortune's Favour is definitely worth the ten bucks you'll spend on it, and you get a bonus DVD with it. All the songs are terrific, and are definitely worth a listen.

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