ALBUM REVIEW: Chris Canterbury Offers a Country-Folk Trifecta on ‘Quaalude Lullabies’
John Amen
Posted On September 20, 2022
Building on the anecdotal style of 2017’s Refinery Town, Chris Canterbury releases Quaalude Lullabies, delivering a country-folk trifecta: tales of struggle and life on the road, melodies brimming with hooks, and vocals that exude authenticity.
Opener “The Devil, the Dealer & Me” pairs Canterbury’s evocative drawl and a mournful lap-steel part courtesy of Scotty Murray. “There’s an army inside my head / and a monster under my bed,” Canterbury moans, questioning the toxicity of doubt and how hard it is to transcend fundamental wounds and deeply ingrained fears.
Succinct lyricism and an understated yet compelling chorus on “Fall Apart” recall Jamey Johnson circa The Guitar Song, Canterbury noting how loneliness and ongoing challenges can overwhelm. Meg McRee’s gossamer backup vocal is effectively juxtaposed with Canterbury’s grittier baritone.
The sole cover track on Quaalude Lullabies, Will Kimbrough’s “Yellow Mama” draws melodically from John Prine’s “Paradise.” While the Prine tune is a stoic response to commercialism (in the form of land development) and the ineluctability of change, the Kimbrough song stands as a death-row inmate’s confession offered prior to his electrocution (“Yellow Mama” was the nickname of Alabama’s electric chair, used for executions from 1927 to 2002). Canterbury’s sonorous vocal adds gravity to the tune’s already weighty lyrical tone.
“Heartache for Hire” portrays trouble in the form of a charismatic con and/or one’s own unresolved compulsions. That is, one can be undone by one’s own shadow as easily as by another person. Canterbury’s reverb-dabbed twang on “Sweet Maria” brings to mind mid-2010s Sturgill Simpson. When Canterbury concludes, “Sweet Maria sings to me / loud and clear from the passenger seat,” one imagines that Maria could be a current partner, a remembered lover, or an imagined muse who inspires him and keeps him company as he drives.
“Over the Line” is a road-weary testimony from a truck driver who only has “a few more miles to go” (presumably literally, though one can’t help but consider the phrase in its broader, figurative sense). Closer “Back on the Pills,” meanwhile, is a heartrending revelation by a drinker/addict who can’t get clean and who is stranded “on the outskirts of town,” unable to shake off his destructive cravings.
Quaalude Lullabies is an unadorned set that shimmers with longing and heartache. Over the course of nine impeccably rendered songs and a brief but riveting 28 minutes, Chris Canterbury voices the ageless sorrows and beauty of human existence.
Chris Canterbury’s Quaalude Lullabies is out Sept. 23 via Rancho Deluxe Records.
