Customer Reviews

Springtime

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4 star:		(2)
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In an age where Jewel and Sarah McLachlan are hailed as Lilith Queens and phonies like Garth Brooks have ruined country music, it's no surprise that Freakwater are virtually unknown. The songs which comprise SPRINGTIME sound like a letter to Nashville saying, "This is how it ought to be done." Real, raw, melodic, heartfelt. Even if you don't like "country music" (and I don't), please give this album a chance.

Memo to Sarah McL: PLEASE invite Freakwater to next year's Lilith.

If William Faulkner had a favorite country band (and it wasn't the Carter Family), it might well be Freakwater. They conjure up a universe of their own, where Mohammed Ali's fight for respect ("Louisville Lip") is no less an appropriate subject for minor key mountain laments than drunkeness, lonliness, and poverty. The vocal harmonies have just the right rawness to them, a keening, slightly warbling sound that pierces your brain as well as your heart, and the simple instrumentation is expert. Be prepared for friends and family to think you're nuts if they hear it come out of your speakers, but buy it and play it on your headphones if you have to. There is something unique, real and American about this music.

The above title of this review is 100% correct. Now if you are inclined to like country music that is lyrically dumbed down and sonically a bastardized half breed between 1980s southern rock and teen pop for adults well this may be to distinct for you. On this Freakwater alblum the song writing becomes more precise, the instrumentation though sparse is more refined, and the sound of the intertwined vocals morphs into something beautiful and almost unworldly. The lyrics make you ponder ideas that you've thought about but seldom hear in a song (think Graham Parker, Vic Chestnut, and Patti Smith). This alblum will give you faith in country music again.