Last night I had the house to
myself. I took full advantage, watching the third Shakespeare play in the
Hollow Crown series (Henry IV, Part 2) which was all kinds of awesome.
I then had a drink or two and
scanned my music collection for inspiration. Henry IV had me feeling maudlin
over the responsibilities of adulthood. After ten minutes I gave up, unable to
find just the right music for my mood. Feeling restless, I started calling out
of town friends. Shakespeare and music area both great, but sometimes you just
want company.
Disc 754 is….Dry Bones
Artist: Outlaw
Social
Year of Release: 2007
What’s up with the Cover? Bird eats barn. Or is bird
throwing up barn? I’m no ornithologist, but I’m going to go out on a limb and
claim that barns are not part of a bird’s regular diet.
How I Came To Know It: My friend Casey has a great knack
for identifying good opening acts at a concert. We saw Outlaw Social open for
the Wailin’ Jennys and Casey ran down and bought their CD.
Because
I don’t have Casey’s knack I had to later realize my mistake when he played it
for me, and then wait patiently for this album (and their EP) to show up at a
local record store so I could have a copy of my own.
How It Stacks Up: I have two Outlaw Social albums,
this one and an EP they did the year prior. Of the two, I’ll put “Dry Bones” first.
Ratings: 4 stars
“Dry Bones” is Outlaw Social’s only full length
album, and it always makes me feel wistful for what could have been. Sadly, the
band went their separate ways shortly after this came out. This is folk music
right down to its very (dry) bones, beautifully played and sharply written.
The two female leads, Pharis Patenaude and Catherine
Black, aren’t powerhouse vocalists, but they have a nice tone and they make
pretty harmonies together and they know how to cast their voices in the best
light.
The guitar and banjo on the record are also strong,
and had me thinking about how folk music often gets less recognition for its
many skillful players. I’m exacting when it comes to fiddle players, and Kendall
Carson has never blown me away, but she’s not called on to do too much on the
record, and holds things together nicely.
The person that stands out for me on this record is
Oliver Swain. Swain is a tall brooding stand-up bass player, all arms and hands.
He has a voice a blues musician would kill for; tortured and powerful from its
lowest point all the way up into falsetto. “Roll
and Go” is a great example of this. It features only a bass, Swain’s voice,
and a light dusting of Catherine Black on background vocals, and really shows
off what he can do. Swain warbles all around the melody but never loses the
path in a way that at times feels not quite human. It’s like a windstorm whistling
through craggy mountains, raw and inspiring. Swain also wrote the song, showing
he’s not just a pretty voice.
Like any folk album worth its salt, “Dry Bones” is a
mixture of original material, traditional songs and a couple covers. The title
track is the best of the traditional songs, driven again by Swain’s voice and
an inspired arrangement.
The two covers are by Bob Dylan (“Odds and Ends”) and the – shall we say ‘slightly
lesser known’ Martha Scanlan (“Raven”).
Scanlan pulls the upset though, as “Raven”
is one of the prettier songs on the album.
The best song on the album though, is a five star
original, “Methadone,” which I
believe is about a truck driver with a heroin problem. This song is a true
heart-wrencher, and Pharis Patenaude sings it like a broken angel. The chorus is
full of regrets, resignation and broken dreams, and lets the methadone be the
shadow cast by the song’s real villain:
“It’s a hammer, and it’s a spike
That I use, that I drive
I don’t drink, don’t really smoke
But I take a little methadone to
help me when I’m broke.”
And then later in the song you see a life unraveled:
“Just last year, I lost my kids,
I lost my wife, but the kids I
miss
Forty five dollars and a month of
Sundays
Is what it took for me to get my
mind back
When they left.”
I wavered on whether to give “Dry Bones” three stars
or four, but “Methadone” pushed it
over the top. Every addict out there has a story, and for the most part, that
story is similar to the one told in “Methadone”
– a life of quiet desperation. Folk music is all about telling the stories of
such ordinary folk, and their extraordinary problems.
I’m lucky to not have such problems. My biggest problem
is griping about Outlaw Social breaking up instead of making more albums like
this one.
Best
tracks: Raven, Methadone,
Roll and Go, Dry Bones, Grey Fox, Glories,
No comments:
Post a Comment