May. 23, 2013 - Issue #918: Protest City
O’ Be Joyful
Shovels and Rope {recordings_bands_mg} O’ Be Joyful {/recordings_bands_mg}
Dine Alone,
4
Shovels and Rope make the standard folk duo set-up bristle with vitality and grit. The S&R take lets traditional sounds get punched up and rearranged with the duo's spirit and gorgeous sense of vocal delivery: Cary Ann Hearst has a gravedigger edge to her voice, especially when she really belts it out like on opener "Birmingham." It balances well Michael Trent's own softly smoked vocals, both when they trade off, but moreso when they harmonize. Same goes for the album's instrumentals, too—mostly done by the pair, with a few guests scattered throughout its 11 songs. Old shapes get lively interpretations: roadsong "Keeper" blends a harmonica and fiddle together in its main riff, which together sounds like a joyous declaration.Underneath some of these songs hides a lingering melancholy, settled in behind the bulk of its action, but that never overpowers the lively zeal that powers Shovels and Rope's songs. Instead, it just deepens the background: the album's title, O' Be Joyful, sounds like a call to be so in spite of everything and anything—sage advice delivered with all the velocity of a band realizing it has something to say, and it's going to say it loud. vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus
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