Michael Hurley is an amazingly pure songwriter and it actually makes me feel a little hopeful, despite everything else going on, just knowing that he's still out there knocking out perfectly unperfect songs like this album is full of.
This album takes you from Tom Waits rock band vibes in the opening to some really beautiful & tender moments, like on Yellowstone. And a bit of everything in between. Great stuff, and, as someone who lives in the mountains of southwest Canada, you can really feel the even-more-North "north-ness" of it.
I don't see how this doesn't end up being one of the most solidly lovely, top-to-bottom, albums of the year (no offense to all the other albums that haven't come out yet).
Dan Reeder has such a soothing voice… sometimes you don't even realize that he's singing about how his lady won't give him a bj on his birthday or the flaws of a beach ball.
When I hear people say "I don't like the rap music they make these days" I ask if they have heard of milo / scallops hotel / R.A.P. Ferreira — and when they ask "who are they?" & "how do you spell all that?", I say: afrolab9000 dot bandcamp dot com
I was revisiting tracks I liked in 2017 for a mix I was making, and when I was listening to Calm Before again I realized I never found the time to spend with this album before — and it's dope!
If I didn’t know better, someone could tell me this amazing 17-track stunner of a dusty country album from Cut Worms is a greatest hits compilation from a long forgotten artist who used to hang out and write songs with Gram Parsons. To be honest, I don’t actually know better, so maybe that is true. I mean, how could there be this many good songs on an album that isn’t a greatest hits compilation?
