Although hailing from Baltimore, Rob Wilson and his cohorts produce music suffused with the folk sound of the American Deep South – rough, raw and visceral; slow, tub-thumping stories of earthly pleasures and regret. It’s a stripped down and heroically uncommercial sound summed up by the first track ‘Jewel of Texas’. In it, slurred violins accompany Wilson’s slurred vocals that whoop and holler, always one hiccup away from a yodel. The track references Isaac Kline, a member of the US Weather Services Bureau who, near the beginning of the last century, lost his pregnant wife to a flood he had declared would be impossible.
These are dark, gritty and often humorous ballads that become aural documentaries suffused with poetry (and in this respect somewhere in the tradition of Woody Guthrie.)
‘Mulberry Bush’ is embryonic rock-a-billy, and ‘Bamako Express’ crudely hypnotic – it’s stop-start beginning and blues guitar combine with a softly chanted chorus and even a theremin that threads through the track like a dog in traffic. ‘ Express is a dopey, loveable mutt of a track, a song complete with a toy train whistle at the end!
Saratoga is an instrumental played with all the rough edges and gusto of a small town marching band – in fact the album as a whole is a slow-paced affair. This means that on occasion the thinness of the arrangements are exposed and stretched to the point of banality. Only on one track does the band up the tempo and that is on a cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s classic ‘John the Revelator’ where one note bass pulses and thin but driving drums underscore wailing vocals and barbed wire guitar solos. It’s an exhilarating ride and it would be interesting to hear more of this side of the band.
Overall, a creaking, crooning slice of American Gothic. Recommended.