It’s that old form-versus-content conundrum. Excepting honourable fellows like Calexico, Giant Sand, 16 Horsepower and the Willard Grant Conspiracy – fine bands who’ve inspired legions of pale and uninteresting southern goths – the alt country constituency are prone to the same conceits, clichés and constraints that dog the practitioners of any abused musical style, from hip-hop to post-rock. Songs about death and drinking? Check. Lee and Nancy duets? Check. Flannery O’Connor namedrop in the biog? Check.
I speak as a fan of this stuff, but also as one who has repeatedly tried and failed to warm to the Handsome Family. Thankfully, Detroit’s Blanche (surely named after Tennessee’s fading beauty) are more discerning than your average bear taking a dump in the papier-mache backwoods. The album title, and indeed cover art, reflects a wit and facility with this music that prevents it from becoming smart aleck pastiche, or worse, unconscious parody.
Singer Dan Miller and his wife Tracee share the same family tree as Jack White, not to mention a love of the Gun Club (hurrah!), evident in the wonderfully sleazy cover of ‘Jack On Fire’. Mr Miller in particular has a sly delivery and ear for detail that renders his cast of creeps and sociopaths believable (“Who’s to say I’m obsessed with everything you do/Just because my schedule seems to shadow you”). And for all the weeping, willowy pedal steel, ploinking banjos and hushed brushes, they’re not afraid to rough it up with the kind of twangy guitars and rhythmic lurches you’d expect to soundtrack a Barry Gifford vision of 70s Berlin (‘Superstition’). Even that old standard ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ sounds like some odd crossed-line conversation between Jim Morrison, The Carter Family and Tarnation.
Urban country doesn’t have to be oxymoronic. Here’s the proof.