This is a set of muted, broody campfire songs with hints of more sinister themes and, with titles like Your Girlfriend Might Be A Cop and Mothers Favorite Hated Son, a bit of deadpan humour too.
Ben Chasny seems the driving force although this is him in washed out folk singer mode. There are no forays into psych-rock or spiritual realms that we've heard from him as Six Organs Of Admittance or as part of Comets On Fire. It's mainly acoustic; only on Your Bullshit does the sound go electric in any serious way.
Donovan Quinn, his singing/strumming partner, is best known (at least in underground circles) for being part of gauzy 'weird' folk band Skygreen Leopards who began in 2001 as part of the Bay Area's Jewelled Antler Collective.
"We've been fooling around with this record for about 5 years now" says Chasny on his website; which is odd because this could easily pass for a one take demo tape.
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I suspect the years have largely been spent mulling over of the idea of laying down a batch of tracks and then trying to fix a time and a rented room to commit them to tape.
The duo don't sound like they're having much fun but the jaded folk still has a certain bargain-basement allure.
As their record label wryly notes, this album could more accurately be described as an example of "old drunk America".
A genre is born.
Ben Chasny's Six Organs Of Admittance website
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