Drunken Barn Dance on Leroy St Records

Winters Tale / Evelyn wears a Tiara

Scott from Leroy Street Records sent this single to me a little while back from Drunken Barn Dance. The mason jars on the sleeve full of...what I'm assuming is liquor....resting in the snow definitely gave me some idea of where this was going.
By the way...I always have to appreciate an artist/label willing to go that extra step of pressing a 7" on colored vinyl. It says something right away about the band... we're willing to go that extra distance since we're already out on somewhat of a limb to begin with. Let's go all the way...test this branch. I appreciate the self destructiveness. No prisoners.

I tried to figure out what this was reminding me of and then it hit me...this has John Darnielle written all over it, it's uncanny, really the sound quality....if it was recorded on an old tape deck I'd swear it was from 'Nine Black Poppies'. It has the same packed, lyrically epic feel, where you can't possibly catch everything the first few times through.
At one point he's singing about turntables so I feel right at home but then he says something about spilling drinks on it, and I really disagree with that....It has that similar Mountain Goats rush to get the lyrics out even, just push them out over the frantic strumming acoustic, belted out in one take, there's so much of the story to jam into 2 minutes followed by two big windmill hits and that's side A.
Whew.

The B side is a slower power strummed number with lots of space. FT has a real penchant for that storytelling ballad.... just plain literary...full of those little descriptions of a depressing winter scene.The whispered vocals to a strained belt...the whole range is here.

gather round till were concentric
gather round like we're infectious
and from the satellites that watch us
you can't intimidate the kids they're building armies outside

There's definitely some kind of gunshot sound off in the distance here, like a huge timpani drum boom...or is that fireworks? A distant popping. I keep looking outside, but that's just the speakers again. You think you'd get it...the same place every time.
Then a slightly overdriven solo at the end with the master tape (?) messed with to get the warble of slowing down at the end...I almost get a Ben Gibbard feel here at times too...but less emotional...heart on his sleeve... more calling it like he sees it, with twists of irony and alliteration.

Is it winter already? It is now.

DBD says:
We should say at the outset that most rules serve some purpose. And there are rules here. Although they are broken with semi-regularity, they exist nonetheless. Adult beverages are mandatory. No more than a couple of takes. No more than a handful of tracks, including vox (such as they are). This process of course destroys many a hard-wrought song and melody, but the sweet outweighs the sour... Life has too few truly unguarded moments, what with posing and re-posing for your online picture and all. These are ours...

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