Whiskeytown | Stranger’s AlmanacEmpty Bottle Evenings

Mar052015March 5, 2015March 5, 2015No Commentby Bake

Whiskeytown | Stranger’s Almanac

Posted in Music

Lately I’ve been listening to so many new albums that I was starting to get a little burnt out. I decided to just put all my old music on shuffle and listen to some songs that I actually know the words to so when I’m singing in my car I only feel 50% like an a-hole , not the full 100% while mouthing, stumbling , and going at the wrong times. Yes, I spend too much time thinking about my own singing in the car. Let’s move on.

One artist that kept coming on was the ‘90s alt-country band Whiskeytown. I actually didn’t start listening to them until years after they disbanded in 2000. I liked Ryan Adams, heard he used to be in a country band, checked it out, liked it too. I don’t think I was alone in this process. Thought of as one of the pioneers of their genre, I think a lot of people got into Whiskeytown posthumously when they fell for Ryan Adams or other bands they influenced in their wake like Jason Isbell, The Damnwells, or the Head and the Heart. Whiskeytown only recorded three studio albums, and today I’d like to look at the forgotten middle child: Stranger’s Almanac.

The first thing that you will notice about this album is that it’s a country album. I know it took me aback when I first listened to it too. A band named Whiskeytown? Oddly, I was expecting EDM even though it probably didn’t exist in 1997. The opener, “Inn Town”, isn’t pure country but rather on the fringes with drawl coming and going with Adam’s raspy voice and a twang lingering on his acoustic picking. “Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart” kicks it up 11 notches on the country scale musically and lyrically as you should probably has assumed by its title. It was one of the first unabashedly country songs that I fell in love with. No seriously, it’s true. We’re getting married this fall. I dropped to one knee when I heard Caitilin Cary play her violin and Alejandro Escovedo join Adams for some vocal foreplay harmonizing.

The album changes course for ”Yesterday’s News” which as it is often described is more of a tribute to the Replacements than anything else and would work with a fiddle about as well as lamb and tuna fish. Other songs on Stranger’s Almanac fit this moody alt-rock mold including “Turn Around” and “Waiting to Derail” This album’s dichotomy serves as a barometer for how Adams career would go: for every alt-country masterpiece like Cold Roses, Adams needs to let out his noisy rock n roll desires too (like um, Rock and Roll or last year’s self-titled gem.

Still, the majority of this album is pure country like “Houses on the Hill” or my personal favorite “16 Days”. Other songs like “Somebody Remembers the Rose” and the sappy ballad “Everything I Do” are like the country tinged pop that you will find on their next album Pnemonia and throughout Adams’s solo career. But if you want to start somewhere with Whiskeytown check out the somber, pedal-steel- loving, western track “Dancing with Women at the Bar”(Note: the live version below is much less somber) and the maybe even more somber yet simple acoustic track “Avenues”. Not every song is perfect, and it has been awhile since I actually took the time to listen to it straight through, but give it a shot. There’s probably something here you would will like. If not, come back next time, I’ll tell you about what I’m singing in my car next.