Son Volt - American Central Dust [Album]

Rounder Records

August 12, 2009, 10:13 AM

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From the ashes of Uncle Tupelo, god-fathers of the 90s alt-country movement, came two new bands: Jay Farrar´s Son Volt and Jeff Tweedy´s Wilco. At the time most people assumed of Uncle Tupelo´s two song-writers, it would be Farrar and Son Volt who would go on to a more successful career.

In the end, it was - over time - Wilco who attracted more critical attention, more fans and had more of share of the infamy (the pills, the band bust-ups, the record company fall-outs). Son Volt meanwhile have turned out five studio albums plus two under Farrar´s own name despite their own band bust-ups and record company splits. In their own way, Son Volt have endured (endurance is a recurring theme in Farrar´s songs) and proven to be, if not as sonically adventurous as Wilco, certainly dependable and solid. It was those solo albums where Farrar proved to be more adventurous: "Sebastapol" being his "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot". And now, with a new Son Volt line-up, here is their sixth studio album "American Central Dust" on Rounder Records.

Jay has long taken traditional country music themes - struggle, survival, the plight of the working man - and put them in contemporary, industrial settings (he and Tweedy formed Uncle Tupelo in Belleville, Illinois). 'American Central Dust' is no different. "No Turning Back" is a organ-led country-rocker which in part hymns the building of American towns and transport routes. "When The Wheels Don´t Move" looks into a post-industrial future and the end of fossil fuels. It contains the line "Who makes the decisions to feed the wheels and not the mouths?" which is another Farrar theme: the oppression of the individual and the greed of the ruling classes. It is reprised in "Sultana", a stark piano-led elegy to the untold dead of America´s worst maritime disaster: in 1865 the eponymous ship sank killing all on board. It was six times over the legal load of "soldiers, civilians and the Sisters of Charity".

Despite these familiar themes and the recognisable overall style - the accordion-and-guitar shuffle of "Dynamite", the piano blues of "Cocaine and Ashes", the bar-is-closing, heartbreak weepie "Dust of Daylight" - the overall feel is a much mellower one than earlier Son Volt records. Jay Farrar´s voice still has some of the hewn-from-flint quality but it is softer. The angry guitars and lyrical bite have also been dialled down. But after repeated listens, my appreciation of the album and its mid-tempo poignancy has grown. It is not ground-breaking or challenging but a quietly assured, beautifully played album (that might even attract a few of those Wilco fans).

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