Kasey Anderson – Harold St. Blues
The demand for authentic traditional American music is high at present. There’s a wealth of archival material by the music’s pioneers, but modern forays in the form often display more enthusiasm than understanding or technique. Kasey Anderson’s Harold St. Blues is an example of how to do the job right.
Whether by design or necessity, Anderson has fashioned a set of spare string-band arrangements for his darkly rich songs. There’s nowhere to hide technical limitations or a shallow sense of tradition; but Anderson and bandmates Dan Friesen and Bruce Shaw have the chops and the deeply ingrained feel for this music that’s necessary to make it live and breathe.
Rhythmically and harmonically, their instrumental work achieves just the right balance between relaxed and tight. Meanwhile, Anderson’s inventive choruses indicate the emergence of a real melodic gift. “The Ballad Of Joseph Brown” is a fine example of how arrangement, song and vocal delivery combine so well on this album, here relating a morally ambiguous tale of love gone wrong. “Raining In Hattiesburg” is cut from the same dark cloth, as familial love proves as treacherous as the romantic sort.
There are few light moments in Anderson’s journey down these lonesome highways, streets, roads and boulevards (he does tend to pound the pavement), and love seems much more often the problem than the answer. But that somber mood is delivered with such style and spirit, it seems less a depressant than a challenge.