ALBUM REVIEW: David Childers Puts Hellfire Aside for ‘Melancholy Angel’

To hell, with snakes, could be David Childers’ mantra. Since his 1994 debut, Godzilla, He Done Broke Out, he’s been a hellish tour guide, leading a series of bands from the Mount Holly Hellcats to the Modern Don Juans to the Serpents of Reformation, now doing business as just The Serpents. Slithering through the charred depths of the fiery realms exploring the depths of human depravity, Childers has entertained fans with up-close-and-personal glimpses of Hades. “My mama usta beat my ass,” he snarled on “Mama,” the opening cut from 2007’s Burning in Hell. “And if I cried she beat it twice / she didn’t like me too well / My mama was a devil out of hell.”

David Childers (photo by Jared Allen)

But for Melancholy Angel, Childers has put out his hellfire, coming up out of the depths to reveal a mellow crooner singing love’s praises instead of examining Satan’s shenanigans. But he still can’t bring himself to leave all the smoking brimstone behind him, issuing a disclaimer in the liner notes that although love was apparent in the songs he was attracted to for this album, he wanted to present it in all its roughshod, unwashed glory: “Love in all its forms; with all its pitfalls and rewards; Love with religion and Love without religion.”

All but four of the songs here are originals, with the covers bridging a gap between unlikely destinations from John Prine to Prince. Childers channels an Appalachian Springsteen on Prince’s “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man,” Adrian Crutchfield’s sax more like a fiddle than a horn. Prine’s “I Have Met My Love Today” sounds like Buddy Holly with the rockabilly hiccups tamped down.

The Childers-penned “Claudelle and Ennis” recasts George Jones as a folkie, Childers using his considerable skills as a raconteur to relate a sweet tale of a lonely Shreveport lady looking for a new life in Atlanta and finding a lifetime lover in the Greyhound bus station.

The title cut resembles 1960s Nashville country with a Hawaiian slack key twist rerouted overland and back up the mountain with some Appalachian fiddle from Geoff White.

This may be the mellowest Childers has ever been in his career. “Let’s Just Let It Be” recounts a reunion with a former main squeeze gone but not forgotten: “You left your shadow in this room so it wasn’t just a dream,” he says upon her return. “The past is what it is and now let’s just let it be.”

Seems like the Snakes are hibernating or have moved on, at least temporarily. But with Childers at the ready to poke the nest, you can always assume a hissing flare-up is available at a moment’s notice.

David Childers and the Serpents’ Melancholy Angel is out April 7 on Ramseur Records.