June 25, 2008
Still Crooked
Still Crooked
Still Crooked is the first album from Crooked Still since the addition of Tristan Clarridge on cello and fiddle and Brittany Haas on 5-string fiddle.
The album starts off gently with "Undone In Sorrow" perhaps easing you into the loss of cellist Rushad Eggleston, who no longer tours with the band. The second track "The Absentee" kicks the album into a higher gear with the energy of Hop High's "Lulu Girl" but with a great theme (which is spelled out for you separately in a track of its own later in the album).
My favorite track thus far is the mystically moody "Pharaoh" whose cranky rhythm combines with Aoife O'Donnovan's plaintive crooning to evoke a dust bowl where farmers and snake oil salesmen wander in some sort of funk.
The nearly minute-long fiddle intro on "Oh, Agamemnon" sticks in my mind and is, I think, a great introduction to Ms. Hass' fiddle playing.
Many tracks should prove to be crowd pleasers in concert. Especially "Baby, What's Wrong with You" which begs for Ms. O'Donnovan to let loose her voice upon lyrics like:
I asked you this morning, baby/"Please bake me some bread?"/And you told me/Well you told me baby/You told me/You said/"Johnny, I'd rather see you dead!"
All in all, they're still having fun, stilll a little crooked (in a good way) and still making great music. I'd put this album above their debut Hop High and nearly on par with Shaken By a Low Sound. It's tough to make that comparison, since I love some of the songs on Shaken so much and I've only heard this one a few times through, but it will be getting a lot of play in my car and on headphones at work.
Posted by James at June 25, 2008 8:48 AM