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Quick Hit: Accents

smalltales

I’ve been behind Accents for their last two albums; their genre-ignoring folk/indie/rock/pop-punk sound leans heavily on the strength of great melodies and impeccable arrangements, despite the disparate genre commitments of their songs. The five-song Small Tales continues their gleeful frolic through genre expectations. Opener “Down Down Down” is an upbeat folk strummer with horns, jubilant harmonies, and way more sunshine than I expect on a gloomy Monday morning. They follow it up with “For Now,” an ominous, heavy piece that calls to mind Deep Elm labelmates Athletics in its blurring of the modern rock/post-rock divide. Somehow, the two fit next to each other nicely.

While “Down Down Down” is the melodic highlight of the EP, “Settle Down Instead” is the lyrical centerpiece. With a chipper-yet-wistful acoustic ditty reminiscent of the Weepies, the band tells the story of the inevitable fade of friends and interests to time. It propelled me to look up some friends I haven’t heard from in a decade on the Internet, and then I went down a rabbit hole for a while. In other words, it’s a moving tune in more than one way. Two more nice songs fill out the EP, which really feels more like a teaser for something to come than a full meal from Accents (particularly because their two full-lengths are so long and yet so strong). If you’re looking for something short and sweet and fun for your day, check out Accents’ Small Tales.

Accents writes folk and pop-punk–it works perfectly

talltales

Is folk a mindset or a sound or both? The answer Accents’ Tall Tales provides is a giant yes to all. The album is built out of fingerpicked guitar and emotive vocals, expanding from that foundation into genres like folk orchestra (jubilant opener “Hold Me Close”), indie rock (the pensive “Artist in Denial”), and even pop-punk (the impressive “I Wasn’t Looking for You”). Some tracks forsake the folk backdrop and just start out in other genres: the excellent, hopeful ’90s pop of “Reminders”; the anthemic Mumfordy folk of “England Awaits”; the noisy indie-rock-with-horns of “Heart in My Room.”

But even through all these genres, the album holds together excellently; it’s that folk mindset coming through. Accents decided that if you want everything, they can give it to you: guitar rock, orchestration, female vocals, male vocals, hushed songs, brash songs, catchy songs, thoughtful songs, big riffs, the whole nine yards. There’s a pipeline between pop-punk and folk-pop; Accents is the house band for that pipeline. This is a brilliant accomplishment that in lesser hands would be a disjointed mess. Tall Tales is very worth your time.

Accents play fast and loose with genres, creating a unique album

It’s rare to find a band that plays strictly one genre, but Accents is going for the genre-mashing gold with Growth and Squalor. The base sound is acoustic folk, but they rope in rock, post-rock, acoustic pop and more into their amalgam. There’s a lot going on, but for the most part it comes off well.

It’s easy to name this a folk album, because the far and away best track is “Storms,” an unassuming folk tune with gentle fingerpicking, an easily singable melody, and a simple arrangement. It’s almost certainly going to be on my Top 50 Songs of the Year list; it’s the sort of song that appears from nowhere, grabs you, and then returns you to the rest of the album while you wonder what just happened. The fact that “Storms” is a calm stream in an ocean of unrest that is the rest of the album only makes this impression more stark.

“Storms” doesn’t have any drums in it, and that’s a big reason it sounds different. The drum arrangements in these tunes mark them in interesting ways. Although opener “Divide” is fingerpicked like “Storms,” the acrobatic, tom-heavy drums press the tempo and import gravitas into the tune. “With the Light” introduces syncopated snare hits that bring to mind alt-country drumming. It pretty much sounds like Dave Grohl is behind the kit in the rocked-out “Routine Movements,” while the post-rock build of “Sorrow” is accompanied by a hammering rush of cymbals and bass drum.

The variety that the songwriting styles afford are a strength and weakness here: if you’re really into the pop-rock of “The Fog” or the chamber folk of “Way Out,” you won’t hear much like it for the rest of the album. But if you’re not into it, it won’t trouble you again, and you can get to the traditional folky bliss of “Storms” unimpeded. The album is pro-ADD. However, if you can take a wider look at Growth and Squalor, it does have a nice flow that stretches from the uncertainty of “Divide” to the thrash of “Sorrow” (which is its own kind of certainty).

Growth and Squalor by Accents is a fascinating album by a band with a great number of strengths. Instead of focusing on one strength, they give each its moment in the sun. This creates a unique listening experience, but I’m uncertain it’s one that they can (or even want to) repeat. This is a band jumping out of the starting gate, and doing it well. Here’s to the future of Accents.

May Singles 4 2022

1. “C’mon Armageddon” – Fantastic Cat. This is a perfect alt-country barnburner that evokes the sounds and lyrics of Bob Dylan, Josh Ritter, Langhorne Slim and many more. Also, the jokes in the credits are specifically for anyone who has ever been in a band; I couldn’t stop laughing about the jokes for a half-hour. (You have to watch the whole video to get the jokes, though.) Highly recommended.

2. “All of the Women” – Allison Russell. This politically timely song from Canadian songwriter Russell’s late May 2021 release Outside Child screams in its banjo-driven roots vibe. Subtle, angry brilliance oozes from Russell’s vocals. Highly recommended. —Lisa Whealy

3. “Jenny and James” – Wes Collins. This is storytelling folk in pure form: Collins’ smooth vocal delivery spins a tale of people trying so hard. The arrangement is just about as picture-perfect as it can get, too. Highly recommended.

4. “Sirena”  – Lisa Morales. Morales celebrates her cultural heritage in this reverie, an homage to the sirens of the night. Braving the dance of love, Morales shines, letting her nimble vocal style fly. She weaves a stunning contrast to the intricate Spanish guitar work that is the foundation of her EP El Amor No Es Cobarde. —Lisa Whealy

5. “While We’re Here” – M. Lockwood Porter. Alt-country songwriter Porter returns with an earnest assessment of personal and professional meaning, in light of his father’s death. The heartbreakingly honest vocal delivery fits wonderfully atop the restrained and lovely arrangement.

6. “Dog Stay Down” – Opus Kink. Opus Kink are at their unhinged best here, throwing down a near-chaotic mix of folk-pop, funk, punk, Nick Cave, Gogol Bordello, and … wrestling. You’ve not heard anything like Opus Kink before.

7. “Flow Clasico” – Ankris. Columbian duo Ankris create the mood of true love and its dance of misplaced passions. Despite its light musicality, nuanced production choices drive the narrative here: Hot and cold, burning with spoken word desire and a Latin beat. Haven’t we all watched that special someone slip out of our lives, cold as ice? —Lisa Whealy

8. “Humble Heroes –  Demon and Lion. Demon and Lion might be known only as the Las Vegas act that sings in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. But this original song’s beauty, beyond its message, is the vocal tone that results from the blending of accents. —Lisa Whealy

9. “CHEERS” – Jordy Benattar. I love a good protest song, and this low-key acoustic-pop tune really is one (albeit an unusual one). Benattar rails against Gen Z / late Millenial ennui, taking the state of normal life to task in this surprisingly fresh and subtle tune.

10. “I Want More”  – KALEO. KALEO might have earned rock supergroup status, but they did so by ignoring conventions. Instead they sing folk songs in their native language and perform in Iceland’s Skálholt Cathedral, one of its most holy and historic places: the center of ecclesiastic power for nearly 700 years. They chose to film a stripped orchestral performance with JJ Julius Son solo.This video’s magnificence is the strings, that include violins (Sigrún Harðardóttir, Ásta Kristín Pjetursdóttir, Guðbjartur Hákonarson, Chrissie Guðmundsdóttir), violas (Karl James Pestka and Þórunn Harðardóttir) and cellos (Unnur Jónsdóttir, Hrafnhildur Marta Guðmundsdóttir, and Júlía Mogensen). —Lisa Whealy

11. “Hangover Game” – MJ Lenderman. Lenderman throws the listener right into the sordid details of an athlete’s life (and death?), set to a scuzzy indie/garage rock shuffle. Hits the spot right between Pavement and the Mountain Goats.

The Cast Before the Break goes forward and backwards with Where We Are Now

I was in high school from 2002-2006, so one could make some educated guesses at what records defined those seminal years for me. (The Postal Service: Check. Transatlanticism: check. Deja Entendu by Brand New: check.) But Deep Elm: Too Young to Die stuck with me even more than those. The anti-suicide effort / sampler combo was my first introduction to the diverse (and often raucous) emo of Deep Elm Records. Those almost-all-now-obscure bands (Settlefish! The White Octave! Pop Unknown!) contributed strongly to altering my life trajectory from “whatever it was before” to “independent music.” I owe a lot to Deep Elm.

The Cast Before the Break showed up on Deep Elm in 2011, just after Independent Clauses switched its focus from punk/emo/hardcore to folk/indie-pop/indie-rock, so I didn’t catch them the first time. But wow, I am here for them the second time. Where We Are Now is a tour de force of post-00s emo; a record that capitalizes on the virtues of an iconic sound without being defined by them.

Led by the near-mythical three-guitar attack that many emo bands aspired to, Where We Are Now filters emo tendencies through a variety of concepts. The raw, pounding fury is there, such as on the Before Braille-esque charge of “Minutemen” and the howling “Seaward.” But beyond that, acoustic bits foreshadow lead singer TJ Foster’s later Deep Elm band Accents (…also “Seaward,” actually!). The 7-minute “Friends of Mine” features a Jimmy Eat World-esque late-song slow section amid a post-rock song structure. The Appleseed Cast would have been happy to write the patterned/mathy riffs and rhythms of “From a Pedestal.”

All of these impulses come together on standout “Slice of Life.” The song starts off as a delicate ballad, then builds from there into an atypical barn-burner by adding layer on top of layer of guitars and bass. Foster’s falsetto rides the waves of sound beautifully, then nails the landing with the evocative repeated phrase “waiting for your light to show.” Right at its peak, it crashes, closing with a beautiful thumb-piano/kalimba outro. It’s everything they wanted to achieve in the record, compressed into 3:55.

While not as triumphant in tone, closer “Hindsight” is a fitting cap on a record that took 10 years to complete. The piece rolls through acoustic-driven sections and pounding rock sections, never letting the listener’s attention drop. Kicked off by a truly rousing shout, the last 1:30 is a masterpiece of emo songwriting, regardless of era. The lyrics are fittingly expansive and pensive: “I thought I knew it all / who really does?” This is the sort of piece that goes beyond the titles and stereotypes of genres to be an outstanding song, regardless of your priors.

Where We Are Now is a big, ambitious, successful record. The quintet’s songwriting is top-notch, the performances are evocative, and the collection works together as a whole excellently. If you’ve ever been a fan of Deep Elm, from Red Animal War to Athletics to Montear, you need to check this record out. It’s a time machine that goes into the past and into the future. Where We Are Now is out on Mint 400 Records, another label close to my (and IC’s) heart.

June Singles 1

1. “All Will Be Well” – Blue Water Highway. I’m entranced by this song because I myself wrote a song that had Julian of Norwich’s famous words as the chorus. It is a statement of great, almost untenably great, hope: all will be well. As America goes through another round of turmoil on account of police killing another innocent person of color, it is important to cling to this great hope: there is a peace coming. For Julian (and I), it is a religious, eschatological hope in its totality; in its partial, unfinished, earthly form, it is a hope that we can keep making progress toward the justice and equality that were promised for all but that have not yet arrived for all. Whether or not Blue Water Highways holds to the eschatological version, the reverence that this track holds within it point longingly toward better while sitting in the midst of evil. The track itself is a beautiful fusion of highway-weathered folk-rock, Springsteen-ian anthem, and subtle synthesizer touches. It’s layered and lovely, bearing the weight of hope lightly. Highly recommended.

2. “Birds and Daisies” – Racoon Racoon. Not quite sure why the name Racoon Racoon isn’t on everyone’s lips yet, as their continued run of brilliant singles is a marvel to behold. Dancing between acoustic folk, formal pop, and indie-pop, the delightful vocal melodies, delicate vocal tone, and excellent song development all come together into yet another fantastic track. Seriously: if you like any sort of guitar-based pop music at all, you need to listen to Racoon Racoon.

3. “Missing Piece” – Marika Takeuchi. This piano-led composition starts off delicate with careful piano and subtle strings, then swells to a big conclusion with electronics, a swooping string soloist, and a dense arrangement. It’s a lovely, melancholy piece that yet looks toward hope.

4. “Spiralling (Max Cooper remix)” – Alex Banks. More than seven minutes of swirling, arpeggiator-heavy techno goodness. The chronological scope is met by a sense of cinematic scope, as the remix pulls back on the freight-train techno cut this could have been, minimizing (but not eliminating) the snare and the kick in favor of texture and body.

5. “Alpha Orionis” – Juffbass. Juffbass took his bass-and-drums post-rock tune “Mountain Highs, Salty Eyes” from his most recent release and collaborated with Marton Gyorog to add electric guitar and synths to it. The result is a fuller, more spacey version of the tune that has enough of its own direction with the new additions to have a new title to the song.

6. “Crow” – Sam Carand. Organ drone morphs into a beat-heavy, piano-led instrumental track that evokes the jazz / post-rock of GoGoPenguin. It’s got groove and punch.

7. “Don’t Go” – GoGoPenguin. Speaking of GoGoPenguin, they’re still spinning singles out into the world, and they’re all still amazing. This one puts the spotlight on the bassist, giving him full room to experiment and deliver melodies over an ostinato piano line on prepared piano. As a bassist, this is just the best. GoGoPenguin continue to push the bounds of post-rock and jazz in delightful and luminous ways.

8. “Orbital” – Crowd Company (feat. Ryan Zoidis & Eric Bloom). This funk cut is a punchy, confident strut that draws in old-school spy vibes, big band jazz bravado, and moody/spacey sections. It conveys the mystery and allure of space very well. Also it’s funky as all get-out.

9. “The Romance” – Winterwood. Slowcore electric guitar paints a wind-scraped landscape, while a solo violin makes its way carefully but gracefully across that barren earth. Gentle percussion provides accents to the work. It’s like if Balmorhea got very, very sad.

10. “Finish It” – Align in Time. This is a post-rock tune with more than a little punk in its blood, from the chord-mashing guitar intro to the straightforward drums to the punk rock bass rhythms. It stops and suddenly opens up into sections of expansive post-rock to counterbalance the punk ideals, but this one’s for the people who like the “rock” part of post-rock.

11. “Amber Eyes” – Juan Torregoza. A lightly psychedelic instrumental post-rock (post-indie-pop?) track that puts a lot of space between each of the instruments, giving a woozy, expansive feel to the work.

Quick Hits: TJ Foster / Ryan Hutchens

If you stick around in the music reviewing game long enough, you get to see whole long swaths of people’s careers. I’ve been covering TJ Foster’s work with Accents and then Darling Valley since 2012, and Ryan Hutchens’ work as Cancellieri since 2014. Both of the songwriters have new releases out under their own names. Both of the albums are highly retrospective releases, giving a glimpse into what was happening personally over the last few years that I’ve known them professionally.

TJ Foster‘s First Person, Volume One contains tracks like “An Ode to My Twenties” (self-explanatory) and “The Basement,” which details his changing relationship throughout his life to a sanctum of sorts. Both of these songs touch on his parents’ divorce, which is one of many personal events that he’s sorting out in this record.

Given that content, the tone of the record is very sad: there’s a romantic nobility in facing sadness with dignity, and Foster is trying to walk that path. Standout opener “I Don’t Know” sets the tone that pervades almost every track, as Foster sets gloriously-executed multi-tracked vocal harmony over a solemn fingerpicked guitar melody. The song closes with as good a thesis statement as you can get for a sort-through-the-past album: “Am I a sucker for sadness, or is it one for me? / Am I losing my grip on some reality? / I don’t know / I don’t know.” It’s an excellent song.

Elsewhere “Brokenfine” adds solid piano, allowing for even more gravitas. “An Ode to My Twenties” is an upbeat major-key folk tune complete with harmonica–it’s one of the few moments of sunshine sonically, even if the lyrics are still (mostly) in line with the rest of the record. “What If” is a slightly dreamy take on folk, while “57” is a quiet tune built off another lovely finger-picking-and-vocals core. First Person, Volume One is a specific, personal record that could hit someone doing a re-evaluation of their 20s square in the numbers.

Ryan Hutchens‘ The Last Ten Years is retrospective in several ways; the record has a lyrical cast looking back on the last decade, while also re-recording some tunes previously released as Cancellieri. For someone who’s been following his work for a while, it’s nice to hear some songs that are like old friends (“Fortunate Peace” in particular).

The sonic vibe is not overtly sad–opener “Green My Eyes” has a gently adventurous arrangement that sounds like a Freelance Whales track, what with the complex patterning of banjo and guitar melodies laid against subtle drone-like element (in this case piano and distant guitar chords). It’s a warm, inviting track, welcoming you into the record. Hutchens loves calm, peaceful arrangements, and even this complex one has an overall feeling of relaxation.

Right after that track comes the title track of the record, which sets a tone lyrically–there’s a sense of loss and even bitterness in these tracks. The loss is especially raw in “The Trouble With You”. There’s some unrequited love spread throughout the record, some re-evaluation of a working-musician’s career trajectory (“The Landing”), and some consideration of loneliness and death (“Poor Old Man,” “The Landing” again).

But even “The Landing,” the lyrical core of the very sad lyrical set, is a major key folk shuffle with lazy pedal steel evoking Hawaiian vibes. If you’re the sort that listens to the vibe instead of the lyrics, this record will have a completely different feel for you than if you’re one who scrutinizes the words. Yet the dichotomy isn’t as terribly jarring as it sounds on paper, because Hutchens’ voice contains all manner of emotions throughout the tunes–his vocal performances hold the two pieces of the record together. If you’re into peaceful singer/songwriter records with strong arrangements and/or difficult lyrics, you’ll be into The Last Ten Years. 

September Singles for the Adventurous

1. “Happy Heart (Can Go for Miles)” – The Deltahorse. This impressive tune is sort of to the left of all its referents: there’s some skronking sax, some straight-ahead ’90s techno beats, and some Brit-pop vocal melodies all jostling for precedence. It comes together into a genre-less sort of work that will stick with you.

2. “Trip” – The Venus De Melos. Math-rock is often a technical outworking of hardcore, the patterning of brutal spasms. This is the opposite: this is a major-key, burbling technical blitz that has a chorus that sounds like the soft side of Motion City Soundtrack or Copeland. Check it.

3. “Palms” – Native Other. Like a deconstructed Vampire Weekend, Native Other splits herky-jerky afropunk into parts and reconfigures it with elements of R&B, dream-pop, and math-rock. Whoa.

4. “All My Fake Friends” – Ira Lawrence. Lawrence’s overdriven, hypermanipulated mandolin is back! This tune creates a towering sound that’s hollowed out by an almost complete lack of bass. The resulting folk/indie-pop-esque sound is yearning, physically missing something that is reflected in the disappointment of Lawrence’s voice.

5. “Shut Out the Light (Ft. Peter Silberman)” – Tiny Dinosaurs. This low-slung, low-key electro-indie-pop tune didn’t have enough enigmatically romantic iciness to it, so Julie Jay brought in a member of the Antlers. That fixed it right up.

6. “Ellen” – Steph Sweet. An insistent, burbling, rubbery electric guitar line gives way to a syncopated, ratatat melodic line that I would expect to hear in tunes far more electronic than this one. Organ, glockenspiel, harpsichord(?), and ghostly waves of delay weave in and out of the guitarwork to create a truly unique tune that wouldn’t be out of place in ’70s Fleetwood-style rock or at the end of a modern prog-rock album.

7. “Demitasse” – JJASMINE. Cello, delicate piano melodies, synths that genuinely sound like breaths, and stuttering oscillations transform a dusky electro-pop track into a mystic, foggy, evocative landscape.

8. “Illuminate” – Carly Comando. Glockenspiel accents the bass-heavy, river-run-fast piano keys that create this beautiful track.

9. “La voz del sur (Himmelsrichtungen, nr. 4)” – Juan María Solare. Look around that city corner carefully; you never know what will be there, even in broad daylight. It’s a veritable cornucopia of possibilities, but there’s always a threat hanging above your head–you never know what it could be. And then suddenly, it is.

10. “Ded Mel 25” – Moyamoya. The machine lifted from the ocean floor. it had been trapped there for days, after the ship wrecked. It housed two poor souls, rationing everything they could to perhaps survive. And help had come, lifting their craft slowly yet surely toward the water. Breaking the surface was euphoric and crushing; still floating were remnants of their life’s work. The boat was gone, but they remained. Clenching a fist, one looked at the other and nodded. The hatch popped.

11. “Valley” – Sonic Soundscapes. A determined sojourner trudges across a windswept, wintry landscape. The still air is almost pristinely cold, as if every step he takes endangers the perfect landscape around him. But the landscape keeps going on, and so does the sojourner, neither of their determination fading. The light continues to creep over the mountains. He will get there or die trying.

Darling Valley: Elite folk-pop with lyrical guts

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Darling Valley is the new name of Accents, a band that reveled in combining all sorts of genres into gleeful, occasionally rocket-powered folk-rock. Darling Valley changed some members along with their name, and as a result Crooked Orchards is less folk-rock and more Lumineers-style folk-pop. But the quality of the work is still elite: the album is stuffed full of tunes with vocal melodies that I can’t say no to, elite instrumental performances, and enough lyrical poignancy to knock the socks off a skeptic or two. It’s the sort of album that makes you remember why folk-pop was fun in the first place, while showing that the genre can support more than skin-deep sentiments.

Darling Valley now sports three vocalists who trade off lead: two women and one man. Their vocal tones and melodic lines are each different; a traditional country female croon (“Moonshine”), a warm indie female coo (“‘Til Morning”), and a brash folk-rock male tenor (“Make It Right”) each get their own moment to shine. But this isn’t three soloists hogging the spotlight from each other, as they routinely back each other up with elegantly constructed harmonies. Songs like “Who You Hold On To” and “You’ll Go Far, Kid” see them sharing the microphone, trading off lines and harmonies at whim. It kept me on my toes in the best of ways, wondering who was going to come in next.

The melodies that they deliver are diverse: from the weary tone and formal structure of “Moonshine” to the yearning power-pop melodies of “Graces” to the giddy folk-pop choruses of “Widows and Revolutionaries,” there’s an array of sounds in their upbeat work. Their quieter tunes also show pleasant variation. The love song “Written on My Bones” is as earnest and winsome as you would hope, while “Monsters” is a ’50s soul/Motown ballad filtered through a three-part folk harmony. By the time “Half Your Life”‘s anthemic vocal line “You won’t / always love me / like you do now” comes around to close out the album, it’s easy to be accustomed to how cool it is, until they up the ante in a way that’s so engaging that I’m not going to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say, they know their voices and melodies are awesome, and they use them to their best ends on this song (and on the whole album).

This is not to malign the instrumental work, though! Their standard folk-pop set up (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums) is augmented by regular appearances of a brass section. Mumford and Sons could have ruined the horn line for them, but Darling Valley’s arrangements are so impeccably done that the horns feel triumphant instead of trite on “Who You Hold On To” and “You’ll Go Far, Kid.” The genre thefts that they so expertly pulled off in their previous incarnation are more subtle this time: “Who You Hold On To” has its giant closing section amped up by a 1-and-3-4 reggaeton drumbeat (for real), “Moonshine” nods more than a little to classic country, and “Monsters” has those Motown vibes. But even when they’re just playing their major-key brand of folk-pop/folk-rock, they show off guitar chops and careful arranging skills. A great example of this is the complex “Graces,” which has a lot more going on than meets the ear at first.

The lyrics also have a lot more happening than you’d expect: Darling Valley is composed of two married couples, so the lyrics skew toward married-people concerns. Oh, there’s still some dating songs on here (“Moonshine,” “‘Til Morning”), but even the dating songs have the weariness of having been around the block a few times. Then you get to the two different apology songs (“Graces,” “Make it Right”), a song favorably comparing a lover to a song on repeat (“Written on My Bones”), and a song about how getting married is sort of terrifying because it involves potentially giving up your dreams (“Monsters,” which has my vote for realest/rawest lyrical confession of 2016 so far), and you’re not in lyrical Kansas anymore.

These are not songs about infatuation; these are serious, grown-up lyrics about serious, grown-up love. You can still read dating into these words: the coda of the album, the repeated line “You won’t / always love me / like you do now,” can mean “You’re going to leave me someday.” However, in the context of the song, it could also mean “your love for me will change and not be the same as it is right now, because we are married and we’re going to be doing this for a long time and I have no idea what this will look like when we’re still doing this in 50 years and that is scary.” Again, real real. If you’d rather have enthusiastic folk-pop about how life is awesome, there’s always “You’ll Go Far, Kid”; but if you’re looking for something else, that’s here too. (“You’ll Go Far, Kid” is fantastic in its own right: vocally and instrumentally, it’s probably my favorite on the record. Its lyrics are hopeful and uplifting, too. But nothing in it is as emotionally lancing as the delivery of “‘Cus all my endings, they came from good intents” on “Make it Right,” or all of “Monsters.”)

I always hesitate to bring too much of myself to reviewing; I’m not a critic looking into music to write something about myself. But sometimes the connection jumps out: the Crooked Orchards of the title might be marriage itself, a joyous thing full of lovely fruit that doesn’t look exactly like I thought it would. In some ways it’s even more amazing than I thought it would be! And in some ways it’s just weird, sort of askew to what I imagined. I wouldn’t ever change it. But I could go back and tell my pre-married self that there’s just some things you can’t know until you’re there. (Also, the album title could just be really pretty words, like “cellar door,” or something else entirely.) Crooked Orchards is a beautiful album: it delves into matters of depth, taking relationships much farther than the standard album. To do so, they deliver incredible melodies and instrumental arrangements. It’s just excellent. Highly recommended.

ICYMI: Mark Kraus’ The Story of Everything

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Mark Kraus‘ The Story of Everything is a bold title for an alt-country record with relatively humble sonic aspirations, but not all can be said with giant instrumentation. Kraus relies heavily on his acoustic guitar and his cracked, earnest voice to create the spacious landscapes that he favors. “The Start of Everything” accents these staples with distant pedal steel and gentle percussion to evoke the sense of driving long, dark, empty highways–a feeling which has become the province of slowcore acoustic tunes for me.

However, Kraus does have some full-band arrangements and upbeat tempos up his sleeve (the organ-laden “You and the Boys,” the immensely poignant folk tune “Little Brother”) to mix it up. When push comes to shove, though, it’s the sparser tunes like “The Weekends” and “Put an Old Record On” that let Kraus’ light shine. Instead of shooting for the epic, Kraus revels in the intimate. As a result, The Story of Everything is the sort of record that grows on you as you come to know its contours and shape.

 

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