Bentley's Bandstand

Tommy Burgers every day for a week, ride a Greyhound bus thousands of miles or attempt any other noble pursuit and the vision of the Gourds’ new album starts to come into focus. There is a distinctive patina attached to the music that gives it an odd glow, one that doesn’t look like anything else. It would be easy to call it roots music and compare it to a hundred other bands that plow the same field, but that would be wrong. The quintet doesn’t really approach their songs like other musicians. It’s like they let the sounds mutate overnight (after all, how many singer-guitarists are named Shinyribs?) and start from there. Sure, there are plenty of banjos, accordions, mandolins, resonator slides, fiddles and assorted other known sound effects, but the results come out all crooked. The Gourds have invaded the folk songbook, ripped out all the pages and glued them back together upside down, which makes them eventually irresistible. Herky jerky rhythms somehow feel right, and all five voices combine for a kind of street corner singing society that has no rules except for full-on emotional dedication and complete instinctual guidance. These fellows will climb into your heart, even if the idea of wearing overalls isn’t an option or you’ve never spent the night in jail. They put glow worms inside their music, and Haymaker!, like every album they’ve made, has peculiar gifts completely unique, except it’s obvious all the songs the Gourds ever recoded capture that same magic. This is small town music for big city folks, and no matter where you call home now the boys are rolling out the welcome mat. Always open.    0 Comments

— 01/06/2009