The Ballroom Thieves - “Tender”

Please allow us to send you into the weekend with a delightful serenade from Boston-based duo The Ballroom Thieves, as they have once again checked off all of our folksy boxes with their freshly-squeezed single, “Tender.”

If you were to look up ‘perfect acoustic guitar tone’ in some sort of magical, musical dictionary, there would, very likely, be an audio snippet from this tune. “Tender” delightfully opens up with Martin Earley’s handiwork, delicately finger-plucking the instrument to a transcendental level of sonic perfection. Earley also takes the liberty of beginning the first verse with his remarkable vocal, with Calin Peters soon joining the fold, bearing a heavenly harmony. If you caught our review of their last single, you’ll recall that there is very little in this world that can top the magnificence of their astounding duet.

The arrangement is intentionally unpopulated for its duration, causing “Tender” to rely quite heavily upon its craft. Earley explains: “We were listening to the band Watchhouse at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022 and their sparse instrumentation and fluid melodies inspired me to start writing ‘Tender’ right on the spot. We learn a lot from our peers, and in this case, the lesson was about the importance of creating space for your songs to breathe so you can hear what’s happening between the notes.”

The payoff here is that “Tender” sounds as though the two of them are giving you a private, intimate performance in your professionally sound-treated living room. Of course, we would be remiss not to pay our respect to the otherworldly lap steel that adds an overwhelmingly cinematic sense of ambience to the track. But if heartfelt and melodic folk music is what gets your engine humming, you are simply going to fall in love with what happens when you press play.

-HD