Listening to the superbly crafted Riverlust, the debut LP by The High Divers, is a lot like coming across a long-lost favorite album. Mastered by Richard Dodd (who’s worked on five Grammy-winning albums, including Tom Petty’s Wildflowers), its opening song, “Rising Water,” brings to mind Bruce Springsteen’s later work, in part because lead singer (and guitarist) Luke Mitchell’s voice sounds like a cross between The Boss and Todd Park Mohr, with a bit of Petty thrown in. “Summertime” echoes acts such as Paul Simon and Vampire Weekend, and one of the album’s best tracks, “I’m Through,” could have been performed by Fleetwood Mac during its Rumours heyday.
Actually, the year-old High Divers trace their roots to a Led Zeppelin cover band in which Mitchell and bassist/vocalist Kevin Early played as teens in Hilton Head. They later reunited and recruited drummer Julius DeAngelis, then keyboardist/vocalist Mary Alice Connor. “Rising Water” tells the rest of the story: “how we left Hilton Head and moved to Charleston, in the process escaping having to play ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ forever,” says Mitchell, who writes most of the songs before letting the band “slice and dice them.”
This month, you have two chances to catch The High Divers live: at a November 11th Pop-Up Charleston event (the location’s still a secret) and November 28th at the Music Farm.
