Lullaby for the Working Class
Song
Bar None
It took me several months to get this CD. It was well worth the wait. The songs on this album are incredible. I had often heard favorable reviews of this band, but was unsure what to expect. The songs are some of the most powerful that I have heard in a long time. These are epics. This is pure poetry that speeds out of Kerouac’s long American night. These songs are the flipside, the true picture of the Midwest that is rarely heard from. These are songs from a geographic region that extends from the wheat and cornfields into the human heart. An intoxicating mixture of yearning, loss and remembrance; this is the aural equivalent of a Sherwood Anderson or Thomas Wolfe story.
Although highly literate, this should not distract one from the powerful music that Lullaby… creates. The musicianship is exquisite and ornate without being bombastic. This is not an easy task since the instruments employed deviate from the traditional guitars/bass/drums equation to include a hammer dulcimer, a violin, cello and even an accordion. This all the more testament to their skill in that each participant recognizes their part and uses as much refrain as skill to create these mini-epics.
This disc should be well received by those who are fans of Americana or the new country sound. Although distinct from those strains, in many ways Lullaby both encompasses these sounds and transcends them. Effortlessly.
Bar/None Records, P.O. Box 1704, Hoboken, NJ 07030; http://www.bar-none.com
