Eric Bachmann – To The Races

A decade ago, when Eric Bachmann was playing angular punk rock with Archers Of Loaf, you never would’ve guessed that beneath that loud exterior beat the heart of…well, it would be hard to narrow that down to just one thing. Since then, Bachmann has connected with his inner film-score geek via Barry Black, and his inner Neil Diamond with Crooked Fingers.

To The Races, Bachmann’s first album under his own name, falls somewhere between Nick Drake’s gorgeous depressiveness and Willis Alan Ramsey’s mythic sweep. Recorded largely solo in a hotel room on North Carolina’s Outer Banks last Christmas, it’s remarkably multilayered despite the spare instrumentation. Aside from a few flourishes added later, To The Races sounds like a troubadour telling tales of isolation and loneliness by a campfire just over a sand dune from the ocean.

Curiously paced, To The Races opens with the leisurely “Man O’ War” (at six-and-a-half minutes, its longest song). But it still draws you in. While Bachmann isn’t an instrumental virtuoso like Chris Whitley, he works emotional territory similar to Whitley’s acoustic albums.

It all comes together on “Carrboro Woman”, the heart of the album and a song with a storyline similar to Woody Allen’s “Sweet And Lowdown” — a man more in touch with his stubbornness than his feelings, as he chases off the love of his life.

“Carrboro woman, won’t you come with me,” Bachmann sings. “There’s some place I wanna go, and I don’t wanna go alone. But what I want and what I need is something else you oughtta know: If you come you’re on your own.”

Like all great songs, “Carrboro Woman” tells you more about the singer than his subject. On To The Races, Bachmann tells all.