So, I've been taking a kinda sorta break here. I don't know. I needed a breather to sort through some stuff, I guess. It's been great, actually. I'm still going to shows, taking pictures, listening to new music, and writing about all that when the spirit moves me. I've also been exercising and making an effort to get out of my CDMHQ hidey-hole on a regular basis.
But I do want to take this site back towards its roots a little bit. Back towards that time when I would do things like the "Sunday Run Album Review" and discuss at least one new record a week. To that end, I've given myself the assignment of writing about a record every day for the next seven days. Here it is, late in the afternoon on the first day of my challenge; and I'm just getting started.
I decided to focus on releases that I've been spending a lot of time with this year. First up is the excellent Years from North Carolina's Sarah Shook & The Disarmers. Matt Chrystal turned me onto Sarah Shook last year when he interviewed Shook just before her band's show at Union Pool (a show which took place exactly one year ago to the day, as a matter of fact).
In that piece, Matt said of Sarah Shook and The Disarmers' debut Sidelong:
"Sidelong is not just good a good country album. Sidelong is just a great album.
The album has all the components of a classic. It's solid from beginning to end. Each track can stand on its own; yet, once you hit play or drop the needle, you are not going to want to stop it or take the album out of rotation. There's a familiar feel to the songs as if you have known them all along yet there's a breath of fresh air as Shook's authentic sound blends her confident voice with thoughtful storytelling and a plethora of biting one-liners.
Shook speaks the universal language of heartache, hard living, and hard drinking, which makes for a near instant connection with the listener; and she has a unique talent for songwriting and storytelling where those themes are presented from different perspectives even within the context of the same song."
With Years, all of those elements are there. Shook writes and delivers songs so naturally that even a chorus that starts with a familiar phrase like "I need this shit like I need another hole in my head" comes off not as a cliché but as the dismissive kiss-off that it is.
It's not really a PhD-level bit of analysis to say that Years is a break-up record. On songs like "Over You" and the title track, Shook's low warble conveys the sense of exhaustion and resignation that comes from sticking it out in a relationship for too long. On "Good as Gold" (one of the best tracks of 2018, by the way) and "New Ways to Fail," we can hear in Shook's voice a tone of defiance as she decides she's fed up with someone's mind games.
"The Bottle Never Lets Me Down" and "Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don't" are both told from the perspective of someone who won't take responsibility for their own actions. The latter is a little more light-hearted in tone, but the songs each touch on the theme of laying blame or guilt on someone else for stuff you did to yourself.
All of the songs on Years are tight and laser-focused. The band's precision puts attention squarely on Shook's words. Sometimes, those words are biting. Sometimes, they're self-deprecating or sad. But they always feel real.
Years is out now on Bloodshot Records.
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