Barn Burning – Weatheredbound
It’s a little frustrating for reviewers, at least this one, when the record label gets off a pre-emptive-strike description that leaves you scrambling for a different angle. But why fight it? Barn Burning is early 80s Athens jangle gone Walden, as offered by the front-cover sticker on Weatheredbound, truly nails the sound and feel; the album frequently does resemble a Yankee-made, more rural version of your favorite Guadalcanal Diary or embryonic R.E.M. record.
Preparations For Winter, with its strummed layers going four and five deep courtesy of guitar, dobro and viola, and sporting lyrical snippets that stick (When I hear the planes are taking off in rain/Ill know its over), qualifies as the prototypical creation for this Providence, Rhode Island, sextet. As walls of sound go, Barn Burnings is hand-built and made of stones that dont always stack perfectly, but it just adds to the rustic appeal. An unlisted, album-closing reprise of the song Streetlight, stripped to just two voices and one guitar, makes a point of demonstrating what Barn Burning can do when the wall is dismantled.
That said, the Northern-twangy, wandering voice of primary vocalist Anthony Loffredio may be the piece that brings the whole thing crashing down for some listeners. Hes an instant entrant in the Acquired Taste sweepstakes alongside the likes of the Ass Ponys Chuck Cleaver or Clem Snides Eef Barzelay. For me, Loffredios vocals are just another irregularly shaped stone that somehow fits.