The End Times - self released

Since their last single The End Times have expanded on their sound with this orchestral country A-Side but if you were looking for some optimistic, uplifting tracks to start the day...just don't pay attention to the lyric. The End Times are sharpening their sickle out back by the shed, waiting for someone to make that very mistake.

A-Side's "Days of Plenty" goes right into a complex finger picked high strung acoustic with a rim shot shuffly rhythm. Jennifer Green's vocal is doubled up in a twin harmony delivering the bad news that (spoiler alert) the days of plenty are over - perfect for The End Times - but that's just coincidence I'm sure. Sounds like the days of plenty are how good we've all got it now in this country and it's got to end sometime. If anything though they deliver the message in a catchy disarming way that twists the knife once they got it in. Listen to the lyric? What? A pedal steel solo is inherently beautiful and it continues into the electric getting distorted. After the tornado rips through the dustbowl they go back to that somber opening verse and it's just Jennifer hanging out by the drum kit waiting to be the bearer of bad news almost enjoying this 'I told you so' sentiment.
B-Side's "Cursed with hot blood" could have been the name of a Slayer bootleg but instead The End Times recorded a thunderstorm off in the distance and played foot tapping acoustic in a tiny room just off the porch which continues through the track. Jennifer sings her own harmony again, not only in different keys but with a different vocal quality entirely like a country sister act. The 'hot blood' leads this character to a lot of bad decisions involving beds but she's cursed. It goes from a quiet folk stomper to more energetic pleading number in hopes of stopping the nymphomania. I'm beginning to think that it's the most appropriately titled band in existence (besides Slayer) and these are tracks from a yet to be named conceptual full length.

Get this from the band direct at their bandcamp page.

The End Times on BSH Recordings

I think when it's done right, there will always be a time when the acoustic guitar and a vocal will still be able to be as emotionally powerful as it must have always been. It's an inherently classic sound that I bet will still have a place in whatever fragmented genre's are happening fifty years from now. The End Times are working in that hushed folk sound with patches of darker elements.

A-Side's "A Plea For Recklessness" opens with a nice tangy electric/acoustic guitar and clear right up front vocals from Jennifer Green. This is so clear and her concise trained vocal is in the isolated booth to commit this to tape, candles burning. Singing a lot about kicking some ass and being loud delivered in the opposite quiet assured way she has from the darker corners of a midwest summer porch. The vocal gets doubled and this instrumentation is taking it's time to finally pick up while Jennifer layers in a bunch of harmony. It's all understated, a slow Giant Sand or Calexico sound. There are hints at an older country here, brushes on the snare, knowing they can get loud and explosive but when they strip it all back to just a slight acoustic and this vocal that's the sort of thing that proves what you've really got. If you can go to that personal place AND the immense produced highs then you're onto something.

B-Side's "The Drowning Waltz" drops more of that lonesome acoustic with a piano backing this time. Shakers and slow ride bass is the foundation this time with Jennifer returning with her sweet sounding vocal about really bad things, a massive disconnect being the key here. The slow contemplative instrumentation that supports the giving in feel of not fighting anymore, but making it sound as good as possible because they're sadists? They're the ones that get off on other people's pain right? Cause that's what they do when you start paying attention to the lyric. Slow as possible teetering percussion reminding me of the Spinannes. They keep sweetening this pot with higher sounding tight acoustics or mandolins, soprano sounds that spin this higher and higher but she's made it pretty clear things are damn hopeless.

Nicely screened chipstock sleeves and a great upside down crosses logo. You know they take every possible opportunity to say at every show "These are the End Times!" introducing the apocolypse.

Get it from the band direct.