Graham Reid | | 2 min read
Granite Mills
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes with an illustrated internal sleeve with lyrics. Plays out nicely as two sides also.
Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .
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It has been 14 years since the last Krauss album with her band Union Station, the impressive Paper Airplane.
In the interim she was busy with a solo career, the Raise the Roof album with Robert Plant (the belated follow-up to 2007's Grammy-winning Raising Sand) and – to fill in a bit of time – contributing to Ringo's Look Up.
Union Station now includes a new singer Russell Moore who steps up for the dark ballad Granite Mills, a narrative about a factory fire in New England which also encapsulates the mood of an album that opens with Krauss's crystalline vocal on the melancholy Looks Like the End of the Road: “Goodbye to the world that I know”
Thereafter we have The Hangman -- the title telegraphing an old-time story about the gallows – and The Wrong Way, another melancholy piece from Krauss in a reflective mood about the travails of this life. Before hitting that deadly fire.
This is a dark ride and although One Ray of Shine lifts the mood slightly (although “the sky is always grey”) but what pulls you in is the gorgeous musicianship – once again dobro player Jerry Douglas earns the MVP award.
But it's not until we are past the halfway mark on these 10 songs that the measured pace picks up for the toe-tapping Richmond on the James, although the lyrics take a deep dive, and then Moore comes back in for the bluegrass party stomp of North Side Gal which has a bit of the early rock'n'roll spirit.
However the moment of levity is over quickly before Krauss' sublimely expressive vocal on the ballad Forever.
Almost as if to restate that this is Krauss and Union Station back again, the songs alternate between her out front or a band track with Moore and Douglas to the fore, with Krauss' fiddle a key instrument.
Krauss has spoken of "the bad, good ol' days" and most of these songs err towards the old time themes of death, depression and disappointment.
The closer There's a Light Up Ahead offers a rare promise of something better.
That over-arching mood takes nothing away from the exceptional musicianship by all, or the prominent voices.
But while we welcome back Krauss and Union Station, the album title suggests something idyllic and pleasurable.
But this Arcadia has more shadow than light.
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You can hear and buy this album on vinyl and CD through Southbound Records here.
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