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It is for this very reason that I have grown to love and cherish Bloodshot Records. I never know what a Bloodshot record will sound like. I have ceased guessing. I just rip off the plastic wrap, put it in the CD player and close my eyes. I wasn't prepared for The Sadies, I wasn't prepared for The Blacks, and Trailer Bride takes the "I wasn't prepared" prize. The only difference between The Sadies, The Blacks, and Trailer Bride is that I immediately liked Trailer Bride despite its off-beatness, its purposeful weirdness, and its brooding, dark, dopey, avant garde celestial audacity and uniqueness. I liked it immediately like when I see a piece of art that at first glance I am absolutely certain I will never "understand" but I like the color and the form and the vibe and the not-always-favorable reactions from others. So it was with High Seas. If it was a painting, it would be on the wall in the den now. Mississippian Melissa Swingle is the driving force of Trailer Bride. Her songs are the stuff of afternoon tv talk shows: bad love, bad relationships, raw sex, destructive lustful obsessions, hypnotic spells, and a cast of dysfunctionals. Her songs come from the poetic side of lyricism and are full of well-drawn images and unlikely analogies and metaphors which she delivers with a languorous, sultry, slightly narcotic Southern voice reminiscent of Lucinda Williams. The effect of her singing combined with the offbeat carnival midway strangeness of the arrangements (banjos played through wah pedals, haunting bowed bass by Daryl White, otherworldly processor effects, and the creepiest instrument of all, Swingle's eerie, warbling, sinister saw) is absolutely hypnotic, like the siren's beautiful but dangerous calls to Sinbad and his sailors. High Seas is an album filled with odd scenes and bizarre sketches seen through a prism that warps the view, sketches done in dark, ominous, brooding colors. Like any true poet, Swingle is someone who sees connections we linear thinkers never think of, as in "Thankful Dust" where she compares a relationship to dirt. Warm wind blowin' up from the South The CD begins with a Swingle composition about the minor West Virginia hillbilly cult figure Jesco White, the dancing outlaw who was featured in a PBS documentary. White unexpectedly showed up at one of Trailer Bride's shows and asked if he could dance onstage. Swingle noted something in White's eyes as he danced and tries to convey that feeling in the track. The music is dark and sinister, coming at us through a thick veil of echo and reverb, and it conveys the idea that any Jesco encounter is edgy to the point of danger. The way he likes to dance makes all the men want to fight The title track is a sea shanty with a hot jazz Django Rinehart sound. Swingle's lyric is full of world-weariness and didn't-want-to-know-that knowledge. The playing is loose-jointed and swinging, yet achieves the flowing precision that jazz requires. Storms will blow and be welcome relief There are several "infectious" tracks on High Seas but none more infectious than "Itchin' For You," which provides another example of Swingle's ability to connect certain dots the rest of us don't even see. Only a deepwoods Southerner could pen a love song comparing lust to insect pests and poisonous plant life. Fleas and ticks, chiggers and mites "All Thine" features some great surf-influenced guitar by Scott Goolsby laid over a powerful mid-tempo rhythm groove by drummer Brad Goolsby and bassist Daryl White. Coupled with Swingle's sex-oozing voice, "All Thine" hints at what Blondie would have sounded like if they'd had a Southern upbringing. (as does the banjo-driven "Run Rosie Run"). Swingle gives us another of her wonderfully sarcastic, totally unique views of the obsession/love/relationship thing in "All Thine." Spend it, waste it, burn it, save it High Seas also has its share of songs haunted by bad spirit and the knowledge that evil and bad intentions are as much a part of the scheme of things as good is. "Under Your Spell" has a Hitchcockian element of suspense and the sense that the future holds nothing good for the female narrator. The piece is slow as a dirge and just as somber, and Ms. Swingle's saw in the background is absolutely magnetic, grabbing the listener's attention just like a gory scene one can't stop staring at. Once, twice, three times is good Trailer Bride ends the session with another of Swingle's refracted visions, "Bird Feet Feelings." She uses that southern Blondie voice again, and the way her drawling delivery leaves out consonants is mesmerizing and extremely sexy, even if her tone and her wonderful sense of phrasing ultimately convey the emptiness she exposes in her relationship. This tune comes close to an alt-country classification and that impression is helped along by Swingle's Neil Youngish harmonica. I'm tryin' not to be sen'imental Swingle's voice and her finely developed vision make High Seas instantly likeable even though it is not instantly understandable and it certainly doesn't sound like any other record I've heard recently in the alt-country genre (which is where the marketing forces seem to want to pigeonhole Trailer Bride for their convenience) although this is certainly a genreless record in my opinion. But it's a record that makes you want to listen again, and each listening reveals new facets that make this unique record a keeper. High Seas is a fine effort by an extremely competent and creative band that is anything but mundane. * Row, row, row your boat over to www.bloodshotrecords.com
and be the first on your dock to own Trailer Bride's High
Seas. It's one way to stay ahead of the Joneses. |
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