Originally posted February 25 2014 in The Playlist of Life
Chasing Locusts --- Strawfoot --- 2007 (Self-released)
The first time I heard this album I just loved it. It completely takes you by surprise, from the weird album cover to the even weirder music practiced by this seven-piece. “Gothic Country” they call it, and I’d have to agree. This is the kind of music Waits or Cave would compose while mucking out stables down on some ramshackle farm in the arsehole of nowhere, as the Devil plays fiddle outside while strange dark winged shapes fly overhead. Country music for the Apocalypse? You’d dang well better believe it, boy! We don’t like strangers round these here parts!
But who
are Strawfoot? Well that’s a hard question to answer, as they all seem to come with made-up names or personas, each member of the band appending “Brother” to his name, while the leader and frontman, and also vocalist and composer, Marcus Elder, goes by The Reverend Marcus or The Dapper King Libertine. He’s reputedly related some way down the line to that old Southern firebrand Samuel Clemens, known to the world as Mark Twain.
This is their debut album, and it just leaves me wanting more. Starting with a cool banjo and nothing else, the vocal comes in in a sort of mono sound as “Wayfarin’ Stranger” opens the album with a very western type feel, and you can hear how strong Elder’s voice is, that it needs nothing else to accompany it other than the banjo. It’s a short song, really more a taster which leads us into “Achilles Heel” as the full band kicks in with banjo, accordion, fiddle and percussion. Some nice electric guitar gets in on the act too, and it’s a real rip-roaring fun fest that just has your feet a-tappin’ from the start. Great harmonica solo - yeah, that’s what I said! - by the brilliantly-named Brother Mississippi, while Brother Eric keeps the bass upright and tight, as we slow things down with the dark tale of “Cursed Neck”, a real Cavesque ballad that just smoulders with bitterness and resentment.
Great guitar in this, Brother Steve just goes crazy, while Sister Jenn’s violin moans and wails through the song, then my old favourite, the mandolin, takes charge for the Waits-inspired-it-would-seem “Strawfoot Waltz”, which bounces along nicely with an almost Diablo Swing Orchestra feel, Elder at the top of his game. The only song then not written by Elder is “My Dog”, a real hoe-down frenzy penned by Brother Eric, the bass player. It just oozes fun and frivolity, and you can hear someone shouting in your head “take your partner by the hand…” Yeah, it’s just fun all the way and played at top speed. When I heard this first I thought Elder was singing “My doll”. Puts a whole new complexion on the song.
Great fiddle work there too, and as it’s his song Brother Eric makes sure his basswork is all over this. There’s some superb slide guitar to open the storming “The Lord’s Wrath”, almost a blues country folk tune, just excellent. Heavy thumping percussion adds to it and some fine harmonica as well. Elder even throws in some yodelling! “Damnation Way” is a mid-paced song driven mostly on violin and maybe jews harp, with a real driving beat and a sense of desperation in the lyric:
”You made me what I am/ You filled me with hate” then things kick right up into high gear for the hot-rockin’ “Cloth” with more squealing violin and some tough percussion, plus great clangy guitar from Brother Steve.
“Fiddle and Jug” is a great troubador’s ballad - not an actual ballad now - and thumps along at a slow but deliberate pace with, not surprisingly, fiddle in the lead of the melody, which switches to acoustic guitar with mandolin, but violin adding its voice for the lovely ballad “The Sky is Falling”, probably one of the standouts on an album almost of standouts. Gorgeous little violin passage there near the end and a very impassioned vocal from the Dapper Libertine King. It’s almost “Classical Gas” then to start “Effigy”, a low-key opening to a drinking song that quickly kicks up and becomes a reel or jig or something but man does it rock along!
As we began, so we close, as “Wayfarin’ Stranger (Reprise)” bookends the album with a much longer version of the song that opened it, harmonica and mandolin led. It’s really more a case of the opener being the intro and this the full song, and it’s great to hear it again before we bid
au revoir to Strawfoot. I don’t say goodbye, because I know for certain I will be back here again, when my weary path crosses this dusty ghost town and I need to rest, kick back and raise some hell with these guys. I’ve made some friends for life, I feel.
TRACK LISTING
1. Wayfarin’ Stranger
2. Achilles Heel
3. Cursed Neck
4. Strawfoot Waltz
5. My Dog
6. The Lord’s Wrath
7. Damnation Way
8. Cloth
9. Fiddle and Jug
10. The Sky is Falling
11. Effigy
12. Wayfarin’ Stranger (Reprise)
I must thank Goofle for putting me on to this band, as this is nowhere close to anything I would have thought to have checked out before. I knew gothic country existed, but not what it was like. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this album, and I hope to be able to check out their other releases as soon as time permits. It’s nice to get into a new genre, especially when I wasn’t trying or expecting to. Sometimes these things just sneak up on you, ya know?
Hallelujah, brothers!