GOOD LUCK THRIFT STORE OUTFIT – OLD EXCUSES
2012 - Heckabad
5*****
From the opening bars of the first song you know this band is something very special thanks to their highly individual and quite original take on alternative country music. That is not to say the instrumentation is hugely different to most others in the same or similar genres, neither are the themes of the songs that are of an almost unsurpassable quality, it is more the overall sound and atmosphere this tremendous album creates for the listener. With two stylistically contrasting, but brilliant, singer songwriters leading the way and the diverse musical backgrounds of the other four highly skilled band members, it is easy to hear why they are so good. What actually makes them stand out from most other bands around at the moment is difficult to define but everything they do has a strong ‘edginess,’ with even the more straight forward country songs having a strong stamp of individuality and an overall originality. This is due to not only their ‘attitude’ but also the character that permeates the vocals of the two lead singers, who go for feeling over smoothing out any rough edges. Not that this is by any means a ‘rough’album, far from it! There is some incredible playing, gorgeous melodies, two singers that are full of passion and character,
great song writing and above all else a hugely evocative depth of feeling in everything they do. This is their third full album with each being a slight improvement on it’s predecessor, although not by a lot, simply because their debut, which I didn’t review was in itself worthy of at least four stars!
The band consists of Willy Tea Taylor on vocals and banjo, Chris Doud, guitars and vocals, Taylor Webster, bass and vocals, Aaron Burtch, drums, Chandler Pratt on Telecaster and mandolin and multi instrumentalist Matt Cordano. The songwriting is split between Willie and Chris with the former writing seven songs and the latter eight. As you would expect they each handle the lead vocals on their own songs but don’t think this is a split album. It is a beautifully blended series of songs that holds together as well as any album that has just one singer songwriter, in fact, probably better than most! Their vocals are entirely different but are matching in character and commitment with the harmonies being excellent. It’s difficult to explain the difference in the voices of the two vocalists but a friend I played the album to said he thought Chris Doud’s voice was ‘nearer to straight country’ whereas Willie’s ‘veered towards hillbilly.’It would be nice if it was that straightforward, which it isn’t, but I could see what he meant, so that will have to suffice! It’s rare to hear two lead vocalists in a band that sing with such impassioned fervor as these two but they are helped by the incredibly sympathetic playing of the other four band members who contribute so much to the emotional content and fairly obviously have a great understanding of what is required to get the most out of every song on this brilliant group recording.
It’s difficult to know where to start describing any of the generous fifteen tracks on this incredible album, such is the quality of each, so I’ll just pick several by each songwriter starting with the extraordinary album opener The Wolfman. It clocks in at seven minutes and forty six seconds, a true epic with an introduction that evokes an old timey feeling with dobro, banjo and fiddle then Chris Doud’s deeply expressive vocals come in slowly, followed by a speedy acoustic guitar. It is a story song that seems to be an analogy for the fight against that old devil that we all carry on our shoulders and covers just about every aspect of ‘Americana’music from slow, moody and mellow to speedy and full of power, with the tempo and instrumentation changes, even including brass, adding
to the drama of this tremendous opener. With that as the album opener on most other albums whatever follows would be an anti climax, but not so here. Every subsequent song is of similar quality, although not length! It is followed by the Willie Tea Taylor penned and sung The Very Best, which has a distinct backwoods feel with it’s banjo, dobro and mandolin giving a light feel to Willies raw, full of emotion, beautifully melodic sad story telling about a lost love. It is a song that has the feel of a backwoods rooted drama rather than a city tale although it can be applied to either. That may well be part of what makes this such a great album, that possibly even unwittingly, the songs have a deep feeling of rurality to them that conjures up a ‘purer’ country atmosphere than most of the citified alt. country or country rock. Chris Doud’s Little Bit O’ Livin’ is classic honky tonk with gorgeous instrumentation, including twangy guitars and steel, about someone who embraces his dissolute cowboy life style, whilst his Highway Religion is another evocation of honky tonk with hard driving guitars on a tale of someone who just loves the highway travelling life. It’s a song that is full of
fire and passion on which you can almost smell the beer and sweat dripping off the walls of a dark highway honky tonk! Incredibly atmospheric. Willie’s Young When I Left Home is gorgeously melodic and his vocal full of emotion on a reflective, incredibly evocative country ballad on which he reminisces about his idylic childhood in the country, and with the beautiful sound of steel guitar and dobro is as near perfect as any ballad I can remember. It’s a song that repays repeated listens for it’s lyrical and pure emotional content that brings back times gone by that can never return and all the feelings of warmth and regrets that go with these reflections. His Marshall Law, is a song that evokes John Prine at his emotional best, with haunting steel guitar, mandolin and edgy harmonies, as is the gorgeous Heart On A Shelf, another country lost love song that is drenched with emotion. Don’t think the album is all country mellowness either, with the band showing they can rock on songs such as Chuck, a ‘drunken’bar song that has a really good rowdy atmosphere with some fiery playing!
For those who think ‘alternative country’ (as opposed to the bland middle of the road ‘country’ so beloved of the multi national record companies!) sits in a very narrow generic band, purchase this incredible album, play it over and over and realize that not only does it inhabit a broad territory but also that the roles should be reversed. This is real ‘country music’ with deeply embedded roots, played with huge skill, passion and commitment by a band at the top of their game! I would dearly love to write in praise of every song on this sublime album, almost having a guilty feeling about those not mentioned, but the idea of a review is to give the reader an impression of what awaits them and in the case of this recording that is a huge musical treat, maybe even the biggest of the year and certainly one of the biggest of this century so far! Great album.
http://www.myspace.com/thegoodluckthriftstoreoutfit
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5*****
From the opening bars of the first song you know this band is something very special thanks to their highly individual and quite original take on alternative country music. That is not to say the instrumentation is hugely different to most others in the same or similar genres, neither are the themes of the songs that are of an almost unsurpassable quality, it is more the overall sound and atmosphere this tremendous album creates for the listener. With two stylistically contrasting, but brilliant, singer songwriters leading the way and the diverse musical backgrounds of the other four highly skilled band members, it is easy to hear why they are so good. What actually makes them stand out from most other bands around at the moment is difficult to define but everything they do has a strong ‘edginess,’ with even the more straight forward country songs having a strong stamp of individuality and an overall originality. This is due to not only their ‘attitude’ but also the character that permeates the vocals of the two lead singers, who go for feeling over smoothing out any rough edges. Not that this is by any means a ‘rough’album, far from it! There is some incredible playing, gorgeous melodies, two singers that are full of passion and character,
great song writing and above all else a hugely evocative depth of feeling in everything they do. This is their third full album with each being a slight improvement on it’s predecessor, although not by a lot, simply because their debut, which I didn’t review was in itself worthy of at least four stars!
The band consists of Willy Tea Taylor on vocals and banjo, Chris Doud, guitars and vocals, Taylor Webster, bass and vocals, Aaron Burtch, drums, Chandler Pratt on Telecaster and mandolin and multi instrumentalist Matt Cordano. The songwriting is split between Willie and Chris with the former writing seven songs and the latter eight. As you would expect they each handle the lead vocals on their own songs but don’t think this is a split album. It is a beautifully blended series of songs that holds together as well as any album that has just one singer songwriter, in fact, probably better than most! Their vocals are entirely different but are matching in character and commitment with the harmonies being excellent. It’s difficult to explain the difference in the voices of the two vocalists but a friend I played the album to said he thought Chris Doud’s voice was ‘nearer to straight country’ whereas Willie’s ‘veered towards hillbilly.’It would be nice if it was that straightforward, which it isn’t, but I could see what he meant, so that will have to suffice! It’s rare to hear two lead vocalists in a band that sing with such impassioned fervor as these two but they are helped by the incredibly sympathetic playing of the other four band members who contribute so much to the emotional content and fairly obviously have a great understanding of what is required to get the most out of every song on this brilliant group recording.
It’s difficult to know where to start describing any of the generous fifteen tracks on this incredible album, such is the quality of each, so I’ll just pick several by each songwriter starting with the extraordinary album opener The Wolfman. It clocks in at seven minutes and forty six seconds, a true epic with an introduction that evokes an old timey feeling with dobro, banjo and fiddle then Chris Doud’s deeply expressive vocals come in slowly, followed by a speedy acoustic guitar. It is a story song that seems to be an analogy for the fight against that old devil that we all carry on our shoulders and covers just about every aspect of ‘Americana’music from slow, moody and mellow to speedy and full of power, with the tempo and instrumentation changes, even including brass, adding
to the drama of this tremendous opener. With that as the album opener on most other albums whatever follows would be an anti climax, but not so here. Every subsequent song is of similar quality, although not length! It is followed by the Willie Tea Taylor penned and sung The Very Best, which has a distinct backwoods feel with it’s banjo, dobro and mandolin giving a light feel to Willies raw, full of emotion, beautifully melodic sad story telling about a lost love. It is a song that has the feel of a backwoods rooted drama rather than a city tale although it can be applied to either. That may well be part of what makes this such a great album, that possibly even unwittingly, the songs have a deep feeling of rurality to them that conjures up a ‘purer’ country atmosphere than most of the citified alt. country or country rock. Chris Doud’s Little Bit O’ Livin’ is classic honky tonk with gorgeous instrumentation, including twangy guitars and steel, about someone who embraces his dissolute cowboy life style, whilst his Highway Religion is another evocation of honky tonk with hard driving guitars on a tale of someone who just loves the highway travelling life. It’s a song that is full of
fire and passion on which you can almost smell the beer and sweat dripping off the walls of a dark highway honky tonk! Incredibly atmospheric. Willie’s Young When I Left Home is gorgeously melodic and his vocal full of emotion on a reflective, incredibly evocative country ballad on which he reminisces about his idylic childhood in the country, and with the beautiful sound of steel guitar and dobro is as near perfect as any ballad I can remember. It’s a song that repays repeated listens for it’s lyrical and pure emotional content that brings back times gone by that can never return and all the feelings of warmth and regrets that go with these reflections. His Marshall Law, is a song that evokes John Prine at his emotional best, with haunting steel guitar, mandolin and edgy harmonies, as is the gorgeous Heart On A Shelf, another country lost love song that is drenched with emotion. Don’t think the album is all country mellowness either, with the band showing they can rock on songs such as Chuck, a ‘drunken’bar song that has a really good rowdy atmosphere with some fiery playing!
For those who think ‘alternative country’ (as opposed to the bland middle of the road ‘country’ so beloved of the multi national record companies!) sits in a very narrow generic band, purchase this incredible album, play it over and over and realize that not only does it inhabit a broad territory but also that the roles should be reversed. This is real ‘country music’ with deeply embedded roots, played with huge skill, passion and commitment by a band at the top of their game! I would dearly love to write in praise of every song on this sublime album, almost having a guilty feeling about those not mentioned, but the idea of a review is to give the reader an impression of what awaits them and in the case of this recording that is a huge musical treat, maybe even the biggest of the year and certainly one of the biggest of this century so far! Great album.
http://www.myspace.com/thegoodluckthriftstoreoutfit
http://0362d2b.netsolhost.com/WordPress/