Today I finally made it back to
the gym. After months of relative inactivity, my body feels like it is falling
apart, and at age 47 it probably is. Sure I get in a brisk 45 minute walk home
five days a week, but that’s just basic maintenance at this point.
Atrophy is a harsh mistress, and
if you don’t want her pushing you around, you’ve got to do something about it.
I’m not saying a single day at the gym is going to give me the title, but at
least I won a round before the fight was over.
Disc 978 is…Swimmin’ Time
Artist: Shovels
& Rope
Year of Release: 2014
What’s up with the Cover? If you get thrown one of these,
then ‘swimmin’ time’ hasn’t gone well.
How I Came To Know It: My friend Justin introduced me to
Shovels & Rope one night and I really liked their sound. I went out and
picked up this album shortly thereafter.
How It Stacks Up: I only have two Shovels & Rope albums. “Swimmin’
Time” is #1.
Ratings: 4 stars
Never
underestimate the power of simple music. “Swimmin’ Time” is a master class in
how much you can accomplish with some pretty harmonies, an infectious beat and
something to say.
Shovels
& Rope (argh…ampersand) is a folk duo comprised of husband and wife team
Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst. For a duo they move a lot of air, and a big
part of the magic is how focused they are on beat and rhythm. “Swimmin’ Time”
has foot stompin’, hand clappin’ and infectious, anticipatory drum beats. The
couple let their vocals carry the melody, and the other instruments are locked
in step with the drum so much that their main impact is to add oomph.
If you’re
looking for thoughtful guitar picking or complex strum patterns, look elsewhere.
I am usually looking for those things, but this record does what it does so
well I never missed them.
Neither
Trent nor Hearst are powerhouse vocalists but because of how they approach
their music it doesn’t matter. Their harmonies are sometimes so loose they
sound almost like a duet, and sometimes they are so tight they’re like a single
person. Whatever structure they’re using, they have a great sense of timing,
and how to make the natural beat of a song serve the story they’re telling.
They both have a rough edge to their singing styles, and it gives all that
artful harmony have a bit of grit you don’t often hear in this style of
singing. The experience is like sitting around a campfire, feeling a sense of community
and a confidence that you could join in anytime and not offend a soul.
The
album opens with “The Devil is All Around”
which begins as a sweet and sorrowful a capella, before a drum beat kicks in
and the duo sing:
“I got wasted and I sat around
the fire all day
See if I could find someone to
make love to
And I barely even noticed how the
fibers did tear away
From the fabric of my being
But nobody knows it like you do,
babe
Nobody knows it like you do
The lengths we will go to.”
They hit
that “I got wasted” line with a fervor
that lets you know they’ve been there. The rest of the line is all harmony, but
feels like a single narrator. It’s just that this narrator has got so much pain
to share it takes two voices just to get it out.
“The Devil Is All Around” is just one of
several songs on the record that thematically explore our relationship with
evil – and by evil Shovels & Rope are talking about that voice in people
encouraging them to do bad things. This record is filled with people hitting
their kids, burning bridges and turning to drugs, all the while knowing each
step forward is just another step in the wrong direction.
But
there is fun on the record as well, including a couple of sweet fishing songs (“Fish Assassin” and “Stono River Blues”). Both evoked childhood memories of shore
casting on the local lakes around the small town I grew up. Sometimes I miss
that.
On any
record where two people are so perfectly expressing a single thought with two
voices, it is only appropriate that they explore how our actions impact one
another. This is expertly explored on the love song “Mary Ann & One Eyed Dan” (argh…ampersand) and the more
emotionally complicated “Pinned.”
The
album ends with the haunting tale of the tragic loss of the USS Thresher, a
submarine that was lost to the ocean’s depths with all hands on board in 1963. Just
like Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the
Edmund Fitzgerald” it is a story of a nautical disaster that I would never
have known without someone who took the time to immortalize the struggle in a
song. Damn folk music is awesome.
There
are some songs on this record that feel a bit hokey, and because of that I was
originally going to give it a three out of five. Also their gratuitous use of
the lazy and semi-literate ampersand didn’t help.
Instead a
busy weekend delayed the review to the point that I got a full six listens in
before I was able to sit down and share a few words about what I thought.
During this time I never once got tired of hearing these songs – even the hokey
ones. Hoke and ampersands be damned; a good record has staying power, and this
record has it.
Best
tracks: The
Devil Is All Around, Pinned, Stono River Blues, Mary Ann & One-Eyed Dan,
Thresher
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