ALBUM REVIEW: Driftwood Returns to Its Core for ‘December Last Call’

Like most bands, Driftwood keenly felt the pandemic shutdowns that grounded touring musicians for most of a year. Coming right in the middle of promotion for their 2019 album Tree of Shade (ND review), the band found itself at a loose end. The solution? Start working on the follow-up. The result is December Last Call, the band’s most expansive work to date.

Driftwood (photo by Bella Seastrand)

After recording Tree of Shade in a studio with an outside producer, the band took the pandemic pause as a sign to go back to basics, recording and producing December Last Call in guitarist and vocalist Joe Kollar’s basement studio. The DIY effort hasn’t meant a skimp on production values, however, as the album is as crystal clear and expertly mixed (by Kollar, with help from Jocko Randall and Pete Hanlon) as any studio-produced album could be.

Musically, December Last Call is primarily made up of up-tempo folk-pop pieces, interspersed with a few contemplative ballads. The album’s title track and lead single falls firmly into the first camp, with a rollicking acoustic strum leading into an electric barroom sing-along that highlights the band’s strong harmony work. It’s a song about having one to many “last calls” in the local bar, and one that is so true to its nature that Kollar claims to have no recollection of writing and voice recording the basic melody after his own trip to the pub.

Another highlight of the band’s harmonies is “Every Which Way But Loose.” While the song was written by guitarist and vocalist Dan Forsyth with Eric Clapton’s iconic Slowhand as an inspiration, the falsetto harmony vocals give it a little bit of a Beach Boys-filtered-through-a-power-pop-lens vibe.

Overall, December Last Call is a “ride with the windows down” kind of album, and nowhere is that more literally taken than on the easy-flowing “Continental Lincoln.” “Every road was a race track,” Kollar sings, channeling his inner Springsteen, “in the dog days of June / Filling it up for a high time with you.”

It’s violinist and vocalist Claire Byrne who gets to anchor much of the weightier end of December Last Call with the pair of songs “Just a Kid” and “Up All Night Blues.” Written from the perspective of a teenager, “Just a Kid” captures the fear and confusion of trying to figure out your place in the world. “Up All Night Blues,” on the other hand, is about someone who knows exactly who she is; a new mother who is looking back at how “up all night” means something very different now than it once did.

Having three primary songwriters and lead vocalists has given Driftwood a diversity that serves them well on December Last Call. From breezy car-riding songs to the heaviness of the almost 12-minute album closer “Stardust,” the album transitions between these neatly with the unifying force of those three voices to maintain the core of what Driftwood is throughout.

Driftwood’s December Last Call is out March 22.