Concerts

Savor the sweet sound of Honeysuckle in Cambridge

Multi-time Boston Music Awards nominees and two-time winners will play at Club Passim on Jan. 7.

Chris Cruz

1 minute to read

While there is plenty of overlap in the sound and spirit of Americana and folk, they are distinct enough to be considered different categories of music.

On its website, the Boston-based duo Honeysuckle calls itself “a progressive folk act.” On Facebook, they describe their sound as “hauntingly beautiful folk music with soul.”

So it is pretty clear what Holly McGarry and Chris Bloniarz, who met as students at Berklee in 2012, consider their bailiwick to be.

Those who determine the contenders for the Boston Music Awards, however, are less certain. Since the release of their debut EP in 2015 (which included, as did two later LPs, Berklee classmate Benjamin Burns), Honeysuckle has been nominated for Folk Artist of the Year three times (2018, 2020, 2021), Americana Artist of the Year once (2015), and both Folk Artist and Americana Artist of the Year three times (2016, 2017, 2019). Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have won in both categories: Folk Artist in 2018 and Americana Artist in 2019.

But of course, categories aren’t perfect, and many artists are little bit of more than one thing.

In the year that they released their eponymous first full-length album, NPR’s All Songs Considered included Honeysuckle — along with Big Thief, Japanese Breakfast, et al. — among “Your Favorite New Musicians of 2016 (So Far),” saying, “Their sound is unpretentious and unabashed, as if each song is meant for one set of ears only. They don’t shy away from moments that are as technical as they are mesmerizing, and here their musicianship really shines through.”

WGBH designated Honeysuckle as a “band you should know” in 2019. In the accompanying interview, McGarry described their compositions as “revenge in song form.”

So whether you like your folk with a side of Americana or vice versa, take the Red Line into Harvard Square on Jan. 7, when Bloniarz and McGarry will showcase material from 2021’s “Great Divide” at Club Passim.