Over The Rhine – The Trumpet Child

It’s not the political wishful thinking of this disc’s final track — a two-beat pedal steel novelty ballad titled “If A Song Could Be President” — that’s most significant. It’s the song’s unabashed praise for the giants of songwriting, a distinction here bestowed on Neil Young, John Prine, Steve Earle, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Emmylou Harris. Elsewhere, during the seedy junkyard tune “Don’t Wait For Tom”, Tom Waits is the object of Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler’s admiration. The husband-and-wife duo have gone from pained to playful in one album (Drunkard’s Prayer came just as their marriage had all but disintegrated). Bergquist’s voice has always been sultry, but here she’s at the top of her game, scatting, soothing and seducing. These eleven songs are swanky, jazzy, and generally calibrated to conjure a pre-1950s late-night, cocktail-swilling feel, without sacrificing nuances of lyric. It’s a paean to enduring American songcraft, and a most intoxicating listen.