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	EASTMOUNTAINSOUTH Searching for a feeling

It wasn’t so long ago that the future was looking bright for the rootsy duo Eastmountainsouth. Their homonymous DreamWorks debut, produced by Mitchell Froom, created a minor buzz, charming critics and catching on at AAA radio, where the disc would have qualified as a sonic wet dream eight or 10 years ago. Since then, they’ve shared bills with Tracy Chapman, Joan Baez, and Lucinda Williams. Still, all has not been well for Kat Maslich and Peter Adams, who hail respectively from Virginia and Alabama and began collaborating in LA five years ago. DreamWorks dropped them from its roster late last year. And whatever momentum the band picked up when their debut was released appears to have waned: it was a sparse crowd that showed up to see them last Saturday at the Paradise.

On CD, EMS mix a hodge-podge of traditional and bluesy tones with æthereal washes and loops and beautiful vocal harmonies. But the cold edge that affects the electro-acoustic production of the album translated into a lack of believable passion when the duo took the Paradise stage joined by a guitarist whom they never introduced. Opening with "Mining for Gold" (a traditional tune popularized by Cowboy Junkies), Adams and Maslich made a curious pair, his California-sun-drenched boyish good looks (he wore jeans and T-shirt) complemented by her more mysterious hippie-elegant presentation (a spaghetti-strap black dress with high heels). They supplemented their recorded material with occasional covers (Stephen Stills’s "Daylight Again"), reworked traditional choices ("Old Virginia"), and newer, as yet unrecorded songs (Maslich’s "March," written for her fiancé, to whom she’ll get married in two weeks).

The two voices, the key to EMS’s sound, intertwined in harmony with phrasing so similar, they practically blended into one. Yet the set never reached an emotional peak. Adams’s breathy tenor bordered on sheepish, leaving ample room for Maslich to weave a serpent-like coil around him with her understated, slightly smoky croon. But neither let go with any real abandon or spontaneity, and the evening came across as too tightly rehearsed. I hope they can push themselves into taking greater risks; underneath the carefully constructed façade there might be some feeling.