Rae Street is the first album since 2003 for the ARIA and APRA award winning folk-rock institution Things of Stone and Wood and it is quite literally, bedroom folk (it was recorded in a bedroom studio in Fitzroy North). Greg Arnold (singer-songwriter-producer) is joined by the original members, Michael Allen, who plays accordion and Tony Floyd who brings a bag of hippie percussion fun and they are all joined by John Bedggood (Bernard Fanning and The Wilson Pickers) who brings the old school violin and mandolin. For this album, they have abandoned their traditional pub rock band sound and returned to a fundamental essence of singing and playing songs acoustically in a terrace house in Melbs. As ever, it is emotional, melodic, harmonically appealing, and filled with songs of loss, yearning and wonder. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Things of Stone and Wood album without those close and elaborately constructed harmonies, which are sounding sweeter than ever. Rae Street shows a band that respects their “inspiring and inspired” (Michael Dwyer) legacy but also, a band that refuses to simply re-hash and re-smash out the old moves just because they can