• The Unraveling

Posted: **Fri Feb 07, 2020 11:08 pm**

boyyourself wrote:Incredible write there glen but the subtle brag at the end......I’m just jealous

I didn't think it was subtle!

Posted: **Fri Feb 07, 2020 11:09 pm**

Flea wrote:You have a purty mouth!

...you should've read it in the original Mandarin.

Posted: **Fri Feb 07, 2020 11:10 pm**

Flea wrote:You have a purty mouth!/I ain't looking at your ears.

This is also a nice juxtaposition.

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 12:04 am**

I had this long thing typed out with an album ranking (minus the math) and it got lost trying to post. SO, the short version is:

Rosemary is gorgeously arranged.

Slow Ride needs to be a staple as long as DBT is live on stage.

Grievance Merchants into Awaiting Resurrection are more than one album of greatness in just those two songs.

Homecoming should open with Awaiting Resurrection and end with Awaiting Resurrection.

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 3:24 am**

Cole Younger wrote: While I know it isn’t a happy song but is delivered in an uplifting way, it just puts me in a good mood and I’ve always liked that method of singing about not so great subjects in a really catchy and deceptively positive way.

I think this is the the thing with several of the songs on this album. The contrast between the dark lyrics and the way the songs are deliver is part of what makes the album work so well for me. You may argue that this has to some extent always been a DBT trademark, but I think it is more prominent on this album than ever before.

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 10:08 am**

Homecoming 2019

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 8:03 pm**

I may be missing something obvious, but does anyone know the story/inspiration behind Rosemary With A Bible And A gun ? Is it just a mood piece about this part of the country ?
I-55 in Mississippi, Memphis, William Eggleston, bibles and guns....I feel like I should be able to crack this code.

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 8:47 pm**

jr29 wrote:I may be missing something obvious, but does anyone know the story/inspiration behind Rosemary With A Bible And A gun ? Is it just a mood piece about this part of the country ?
I-55 in Mississippi, Memphis, William Eggleston, bibles and guns....I feel like I should be able to crack this code.

It's rising to the top of the album for me, and I have no clue what it's about.

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 9:00 pm**

Jonicont wrote:Homecoming 2019

Kick ass

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 9:00 pm**

Flea wrote:
jr29 wrote:I may be missing something obvious, but does anyone know the story/inspiration behind Rosemary With A Bible And A gun ? Is it just a mood piece about this part of the country ?
I-55 in Mississippi, Memphis, William Eggleston, bibles and guns....I feel like I should be able to crack this code.
It's rising to the top of the album for me, and I have no clue what it's about.

It feels like an outtake from Heat Lightning in the Distance, a good outtake that just didn't get used. I gather it's not, but it still sounds like it's from that record.

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 9:24 pm**

Flea wrote:
jr29 wrote:I may be missing something obvious, but does anyone know the story/inspiration behind Rosemary With A Bible And A gun ? Is it just a mood piece about this part of the country ?
I-55 in Mississippi, Memphis, William Eggleston, bibles and guns....I feel like I should be able to crack this code.
It's rising to the top of the album for me, and I have no clue what it's about.

My understanding is that it’s not about anything in particular. Just damned good writing

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2020 9:43 pm**

Tequila Cowboy wrote:The Unraveling is #1 on the UK Americana charts!

We do our best lads.

Tequila Cowboy wrote:Some serious thread drift going on here but since Shonna was brought up he two best songs are I’m Sorry Huston and You Got Another. Both really good songs in their own right even if they didn’t quite fit.

I love "I told you so". Lovely bouncy tune that comes along just when you need it. My favourite of hers.

I think the band slightly misses a 3rd songwriter adding a little touch of something else.

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2020 12:33 am**

Tequila Cowboy wrote:
Flea wrote:
jr29 wrote:I may be missing something obvious, but does anyone know the story/inspiration behind Rosemary With A Bible And A gun ? Is it just a mood piece about this part of the country ?
I-55 in Mississippi, Memphis, William Eggleston, bibles and guns....I feel like I should be able to crack this code.
It's rising to the top of the album for me, and I have no clue what it's about.
My understanding is that it’s not about anything in particular. Just damned good writing

Thanks.
I definitely think it captures an intangible, mystical thing that I feel in Memphis.

Posted: **Tue Feb 11, 2020 9:11 am**

The Unraveling is the lead album in the reviews section of MOJO which is a print only English rock magazine.

(I copied it to a PDF file but I aren't smart enough to know how to paste it here.)

Posted: **Tue Feb 11, 2020 10:23 am**

Pitchfork (finally) chimes in:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dr ... nraveling/

Posted: **Tue Feb 11, 2020 12:04 pm**

Zip City wrote:Pitchfork (finally) chimes in:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dr ... nraveling/

Anybody want to take a crack at translating this into English?

"The new songs move like anguished monologues, probing for a source of horror, as if Hood and Cooley decided that narrative distance would amount to emotional abdication."

Posted: **Tue Feb 11, 2020 1:03 pm**

beantownbubba wrote:
Zip City wrote:Pitchfork (finally) chimes in:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dr ... nraveling/
Anybody want to take a crack at translating this into English?

"The new songs move like anguished monologues, probing for a source of horror, as if Hood and Cooley decided that narrative distance would amount to emotional abdication."

That almost reads like attorney speak!

Posted: **Tue Feb 11, 2020 1:36 pm**

beantownbubba wrote:
Zip City wrote:Pitchfork (finally) chimes in:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dr ... nraveling/
Anybody want to take a crack at translating this into English?

"The new songs move like anguished monologues, probing for a source of horror, as if Hood and Cooley decided that narrative distance would amount to emotional abdication."

I think the sentiment is pretty clear, actually. "DBT's usual approach of centering real life problems into a narrative or character piece probably felt less immediate than putting it all out there"

Posted: **Wed Feb 12, 2020 1:43 am**

Cooley is on Brian Koppleman’s podcast this week. Worth a listen especially since he’s on by himself.

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/slate/ ... -koppelman

Posted: **Thu Feb 13, 2020 6:00 pm**

Direwolfpdx wrote:Cooley is on Brian Koppleman’s podcast this week. Worth a listen especially since he’s on by himself.

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/slate/ ... -koppelman

Thanks, that was really interesting. Very revealing on the lengths an artist can go to not do the work he dearly loves to do! What I love about Cooley is that he's simultaneously very unpretentious... and also, for me, a natural born poet.

I love his recollection of playing live and thinking "you WROTE this you dumb fucker! you're a GOOD writer! You can do this!" (I'm paraphrasing)

Also, Koppleman suggesting to Cooley that he's a man who talks in song titles.

More convinced than ever that there's a great solo album in Cooley waiting to get out.

Posted: **Thu Feb 13, 2020 9:17 pm**

I've had the LP sitting next to the turntable since last week. Finally Saturday my wife has a 2 hour hair appointment, I have birthday cash, and I'm getting a nice bottle of bourbon to sit dead center between the speakers and take it and Moreland's new LP5 on the setup.

Been listening almost every day in the car and earbuds while working, but there's just something about the vinyl process.

Posted: **Mon Feb 17, 2020 11:30 am**

An A- from the Dean (Robert Christgau)--"three elusive personal tracks by Hood and his pal Cooley with six of the kind of protest songs elite aesthetes are too tasteful and chickenshit to try for. “Thoughts and Prayers,” “Babies in Cages,” and “21st Century USA” announce their topics up front, so bitter and detailed they make you mad there aren’t more out there"

Posted: **Mon Feb 17, 2020 11:33 am**

Jonicont wrote:An A- from the Dean (Robert Christgau)--"three elusive personal tracks by Hood and his pal Cooley with six of the kind of protest songs elite aesthetes are too tasteful and chickenshit to try for. “Thoughts and Prayers,” “Babies in Cages,” and “21st Century USA” announce their topics up front, so bitter and detailed they make you mad there aren’t more out there"

Like.

Posted: **Mon Feb 17, 2020 5:58 pm**

Jonicont wrote:An A- from the Dean (Robert Christgau)--"three elusive personal tracks by Hood and his pal Cooley with six of the kind of protest songs elite aesthetes are too tasteful and chickenshit to try for. “Thoughts and Prayers,” “Babies in Cages,” and “21st Century USA” announce their topics up front, so bitter and detailed they make you mad there aren’t more out there"

Link? I couldn't find it.

Posted: **Mon Feb 17, 2020 9:49 pm**

scotto wrote:
Jonicont wrote:An A- from the Dean (Robert Christgau)--"three elusive personal tracks by Hood and his pal Cooley with six of the kind of protest songs elite aesthetes are too tasteful and chickenshit to try for. “Thoughts and Prayers,” “Babies in Cages,” and “21st Century USA” announce their topics up front, so bitter and detailed they make you mad there aren’t more out there"
Link? I couldn't find it.

He’s gone to subscription only. Book, movie reviews, long forms. $5.00 month

Posted: **Mon Feb 17, 2020 9:49 pm**

scotto wrote:
Jonicont wrote:An A- from the Dean (Robert Christgau)--"three elusive personal tracks by Hood and his pal Cooley with six of the kind of protest songs elite aesthetes are too tasteful and chickenshit to try for. “Thoughts and Prayers,” “Babies in Cages,” and “21st Century USA” announce their topics up front, so bitter and detailed they make you mad there aren’t more out there"
Link? I couldn't find it.

Christgau is without a paying gig currently, so he's got a freemium kind of model where he's got a free newsletter and a paid-access website.

Posted: **Tue Feb 18, 2020 1:41 pm**

So this is not a complaint. It is just a whine.

My reshipped copy was waiting for me when I got home. I'm not sure it's the version I was expecting from the pre-order, as it's got a Books-A-Million sticker on it. That'd be on me, because the first copy got shipped back because the post office things my house is abandoned. But I'm curious whether I got what I'd hoped for.

The other thing is, Where is the download code hidden? I searched and searched and cannot find it. I've been a very good boy and only listened to this via legit copies, and this is my reward? I wish I was still an outlaw. It was a better way of life.

Posted: **Wed Feb 19, 2020 8:38 pm**

Here's my 2 cents from the Unraveling thread on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums (https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/ ... t-23265554):

Just back from Homecoming, still buzzing from three nights of amazing Rock Show and heathens community love, and spinning this album all morning.

Sound: I have the marble sky (or whatever it's called) colored vinyl version. I'm not a big colored vinyl fan, but this sounds clean and full. Comments from the band indicate that they and longtime producer David Barbe consciously went for a more spacious stereo-centric mix ("cinematic" in the words of Patterson Hood) over their usual punchy (almost mono-sounding in, again, Patterson's words), immediate sound, and it shows. Even the rockers have a fuller and more complex (for lack of a better term) feel than recent albums and certainly more than their "old stuff." Where as some recent albums sound great, but veer toward muddiness when cranked (English Oceans for one, or is that just my copy?), this one really unfolds and spreads out with extra volume. My first listen was via shared downloads and, listening piecemeal, I loved the tunes, but was underwhelmed. But as a whole, the vinyl really shows off the care and detail that went into both the arrangements and the recording/mixing. "Awaiting Resurrection" is a perfect example: Crank it up and get lost in the beautiful, scary void.

Notes: Recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis, TN, by Matt Ross-Spang and David Barbe...additional recording at Chase Park Transduction in Athens, GA, by David Barbe...mixed by Matt Ross-Spang and David Barbe on a vintage 1975 Neve console at Chase Park Transduction...mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound. "We recorded most of this album in Memphis at Sam Phillips' dream lair. His mad-genius echo chambers reverberating down the pastel painted hallways. Mick stopped by one day. No ****. It's been that kind of century. Most of the tracks were more or less live. Many in one or two takes. We played them loud. You should too."

Band: Interestingly their development is causing a seismic rift between the "I Like Their Old Stuff Better/I Just Wish They'd Shut Up and Play Rock And Roll" crowd and those who enjoy their evolution and what they have to say. To the extent that the old Facebook page turned into a constant back and forth between the two and prompted and breakaway drama-free page.
I get that. I love both their development and what they have to say. For my money, this is their best one yet. But you like what you like.
Cheers, y'all.

By the way, we need more Heathens over on the Hoffman forums.

Posted: **Thu Feb 20, 2020 3:58 pm**

I just listened to Roger Waters' Is This the Life We Really Want album for the first time in awhile, then re-listened to The Unraveling

Side-by-side, the DBT record feels almost....staid? Tame? Waters is really letting it fly on his album (which is far more Trump-centric, FWIW), while it feels like the studio versions of songs like "Babies in Cages" could be 10x angrier (and maybe it is live, I haven't seen it). And I don't mean lyrically, I mean in performance.

I dunno, just a new observation based on a contrast of two of the more charged "political" records of the past 3 years.

Posted: **Fri Feb 21, 2020 12:13 pm**

scotto wrote: By the way, we need more Heathens over on the Hoffman forums.

I've been on the Hoffman forums for 16 years.

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