Trailer Bride
Smelling Salts
Bloodshot
In the current musical landscape of faceless hacks, Melissa Swingle sticks out like the Fifty-Foot Woman. Hailing from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Swingle’s band Trailer Bride moves from the hopped-up country stomp of “Quit That Jealousy” to eerie desperation of “Bruises for Pearls” and “Fighting Back the Buzzards” without sounding forced. Swingle handles most everything stringed on the record – guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonica and saw. She’s complemented well by Brad Goolsby on drums and Daryl White on bass. Swingle handles the singing, and while her warbling tone ain’t gonna make anyone toss their Patsy Cline records out the window, it fits perfectly in Trailer Brides “Porch Music” sound. This is truly original, personal music – a combination of old timey mountain sounds side by side with primitive delta slide blues. It’s all summed up in the track “Wildness” – “I don’t care what the Jones do, this normal world has got me blue, how about you?” Hell Melissa, me too. Thanks for the musical smelling salts. Rave on, you woman possessed. Bloodshot Records, 912 W. Addison St., Chicago, IL 60613
