Whether or not a country boy can survive is mutually based on hard work and tales of woe and despair that everyone can relate too.
Enter the somber side of psychedelic alt-country pioneers, The Sadies, with their 13th album in 10 years, Darker Circles, (due out May 18 with Gary Louris of The Jayhawks fame twisting knobs) a much more solemn follow-up to the bastard child of John Doe and The Sadies 2009’s countrypolitan Country Club.
This time around, the guitar-wielding brothers Dallas and Travis Good, and cohorts Sean Dean (bass fiddle) and Mike Belitsky (drums), branch out with an even more countrified blend of laid-back misery set to tense verses of the dark side of dying love.
Straight from their record label’s page:
“I get people like my mom asking me if something is wrong because the lyrics are somber and dark. I don’t think that would be the first question that I would ask of a horror film director,” Dallas said.
“Writing poetry depends on how you look at it. Some people write poetry to purge their darkest sins and feelings. Other people write poetry because it’s a craft they like to work on. As far as I know, those would be the two root things–either some sort of profound gotta-purge-it or a guy going, ‘what the fuck rhymes with love?’ I would put myself on the latter side but I don’t know. That’s up to the listener.”
If desolate and foreboding poetry steeped in wailing twangy rawness is what the listener seeks, then they need look no further than Darker Circles, where shedding inhibitions and being openly vulnerable is not just a stripped-down lyric, it’s a way of life, and anyone who has pined for a love gone wrong and reckoned with a little soul searching of their own can relate.
Herein lies the genius.
Songs like “Tell Her What I Said” and “Another Year Again” echo the regrets of one of life’s most seductive illusions. Still, if life teaches us anything, it’s that country boys can survive …
Have a listen:
