October 30, 2003

Bait and Switch Bands

Ever go see a band live, love 'em, then buy their albums at the back table and take them home...only to discover that all the energy of the live performance is absent from them? Or worse, the album is almost suicide-inducingly depressing?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Frog Holler....

This alt.country band from Pennsylvania kicks in person. Paula, Zoë and I went to see them at Roots Cafe, Baltimore's roots music concert series at the former St. John's Methodist Church in Charles Village. We picked up their two most recent CDs at the merch table and didn't open them until the next day when...

We found we had been hornswoggled. The music was still beautiful and well-performed, but almost everything on their newest CD, "Railings", was gloom-despair-and-agony-on-me.

This is the sort of album that should come with a warning label: "May induce desire to crawl under a rock."

Their earlier album, "Idiots", is somewhat more balanced (apparently, their songwriting team was on its meds when they were in the studio with that one).

Ironically, one of the more "upbeat" tracks on "Railings" is called Idiots, which makes me think it was supposed to be the title track on their last album, but somehow escaped and couldn't be recaptured until they were cutting their next disc.

And compare that track to this live cut, Choose A Path, or this one, Berks County Boy (which is downtemp, but at least has energy), from the release party for "Railings". Notice a difference?

The answer must be that these guys need a beer or two in them before they can cut loose--and the studio must be dry. Or maybe it's the other way around.

Posted by Sean at October 30, 2003 05:32 PM | TrackBack
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