Review Summary: Songs for the Drunk and the Dead “I mist inside your house. I linger in your curtains. I wait until you are asleep so that I can speak to you in your dreams. I am as close to you as the veins in your neck when I say to you, in my whispering lisp, 'I, too, began as a boy.'
–Mark Richards “Fishboy” If the preceding quotation seems esoteric to you then allow me to explain why it is relevant to Murder by Death’s most recent release. Fishboy by Mark Richards is a ghost story told from the point of view of the titular ghost as he makes his way through some sort of fantastic purgatory. As the book unfolds we are told the stories of the myriad other lost souls caught with him on his voyage to his final destination and it is apropos to Murder By Deaths’ “Bitter Drink Bitter Moon”. Somewhere, in the time between “Who Will Survive and What Will Become of Them” and “Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon” Murder By Death found their comfortable space. They have taken their stories of spirits and revenge and brought them to a new level of maturity, not only lyrically but musically as well. Stripping down their sound post “In Bocca al Lupo”, with “Red of Tooth and Claw” we saw a group pushing their sound and feeling out of the territory they had laid for themselves. The production was crystal clear and the stories of revenge and lust continued on as they had during the concept album of “Who Will Survive and What Will Become of Them”.
Very visceral and immediate, they begin to take on an even more narrative and personal feel. Babadook origin. The songs began parading themselves out like stories you would tell around a waning campfire or sitting at a table in your local pub with alcohol sweating out of your pores and the desire to believe anything that you were told, so long as it made you feel something. “Good Morning, Magpie” changed further, streamlining and perhaps strengthening parts of the songwriting but also losing some of the immediacy of the earlier recordings. While songs like “White Noise” and “King of the Gutters, Prince of the Dogs” were a triumphant continuation of Murder By Death’s evolution the album as whole seemed to lose itself in its muddy production. With “Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon” we find the band moving beyond the limitations they had seeming placed on themselves by re-introducing keys, adding brass, and even a Theremin to fill out the bones of their sound.
The production goes from muddied when needed to crisp and clear. Where songs like Killbot 2000 or Summer Break 1899 gave us stories that occurred as we listened, on “Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon” we find ourselves in the midst of the ghosts of the way things used to be (My Hill), dead children (Hard World), and the call of a homeland to the children that grew up there (Ghost Fields). There is a sense of continuity and growth seven albums in (eight including Finch) that is rarely matched and deserves kudos. In the end though what really works in Murder by Deaths’ favor is the sense of mastery in their chosen manner of story telling.
There seems to be no waste here. The songs are stripped down and at times jubilant belying the subject matter, which they pulled off well on “Good Morning, Magpie” but executed with precision on “Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon”. These are the songs of the drunken, the dead, and the damned, packaged in a way that you can take the stories as a whole, or alone, and like ghosts the more you linger on them, the more you pay attention to their stories the longer they stay with you.
Haunting you.
Murder By Death Bitter Drink Reviews
The members of Murder by Death have aptly referred to their brand of gothic, old-West tunes as “dark whiskey devil music.” They have a plethora of songs that serve as musical yarns concerning revenge, or murder, or any number of tragic themes for that matter. Concept albums about the devil destroying an entire town in Mexico sit side by side with tales of pirates at sea or odes to Kentucky bourbon. Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon fits perfectly within the band’s wheelhouse, but it also serves as step forward in their music.
“My Hill” is a mournful number that opens the record with a slow burn before transitioning into “Lost River,” a soul-lifting song that is the first indication the band decided to expand their sound on this album. Murder by Death’s music has always featured a slightly orchestral element due to cellist Sarah Balliet’s incredible contributions. In the past, Balliet’s cello sounded out slow, heart-stirring funeral notes or intense, climactic murder music. But on Bitter Drink, the cello work more often soars rather than weeps, producing an effect rousing rather than anguished. The band has been increasingly experimenting with upbeat songs over the course of their career. However, as frontman Adam Turla has said before, “upbeat” doesn’t necessarily mean “happy,” and the same is true with the material on the band’s most recent effort.
Murder By Death Bitter Drink Bitter Moon
But never before has Murder by Death sounded so uplifting. Several of the tracks affect a sensation that seems to draw inspiration from the likes of Arcade Fire or Karen O’s soundtrack to. Side A of the album is characterized by an emotional high with raucous bar sing-alongs like the record’s single “I Came Around” and “Hard World.” But the second half of Bitter Drink takes on a more somber attitude. “Queen Mab” is a dark, instrumental track that perfectly captures the gloomy atmosphere that plays host to songs like “Oh, To Be an Animal,” which contains the refrain “It’s the loneliest of times.” Turla’s low, baritone voice has oft been compared to the legendary Johnny Cash, but “Go to the Light”—a song about, you guessed it, death—is one of the best cases for such a claim. “Ghost Fields” closes the album perfectly with a moving number that, at its roots, feels like a country song, but the horns, crashing drums and heavy guitars that are present later in the track transform the song into a sweeping epic. “She bends with the wind, and he shifts like sand,” Turla sings poetically before unnecessarily apologizing.
Murder By Death
“I try to explain, but I’m not an eloquent man.” Put simply, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon is Murder by Death’s most beautiful album to date. It is a robust record brimming with all the qualities we love about the band while taking the music in a new direction. This is a band that has somehow managed to fly just under the radar of most, but if there was ever an album to put them on the map, it’s this one.
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |