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Most of the album stays true to a light flavor, and Welcome Joy is a nice, comfortable listen, right up there with "Invitation Songs."
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Welcome Joy is the perfect, earthy balance of the grittiest and the sweetest splendors that the Pacific has to offer.
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This is a remarkable album in every sense.
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It closes with the sigh of "Bramble," another one of the band’s well-crafted whispers that seems more like a lo-fi sketch than a fully realized song. In isolated moments like this Welcome Joy shines as a companion piece equal to their first release, "Invitation Songs."
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Emphatic yet rarely overbearing choruses, all delivered in a subtle manner, will always bring me back to the road. The Cave Singers have mastered the art of give and take.
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Mumbly, scratchy-voiced Pete Quirk is more self-assured than on 2007’s Invitation Songs, championing optimism and determination in the face of trouble, powered by sharp folk and country-blues guitars, plus no-frills percussion.