Up in Smoke

Great North is centered around husband-and-wife duo Hayden and Rachel Donnell.

Numerous stage performances and two critically acclaimed albums have established them as charming and winsome alt. folk entertainers.

The band's debut album, Newfoundland, featured tales of infatuation and heartbreak Their second album, Halves, is a collection of songs about the hours spent with those who are counting on our promises, set to music that draws comparisons to Okkervil River, Gillian Welch, Justin Townes Earle, Bruce Springsteen and other stalwarts of the Americana genre

Their work has received critical acclaim and five star reviews, with Halves being dubbed 'majestic' and 'meaningful'. The album won Best Folk Album at the 2013 New Zealand Music Awards, and featured in the New Zealand Herald best albums of 2012 list:

"Though there are plenty of New Zealand bands treading the alt-country folk-rock route and trying to make the sound their own, Aucklanders Great North stood out as something special on their second album which came with elegantly turned lyrics speaking of love, hope, death and life in uncertain times delivered in arrangements that built something quietly majestic out of their rustic, mostly acoustic, approach"