Califone - "All My Friends are Funeral Singers"

I've always imagined Califone as a band that wears perfectly fitted suits while playing in murky swamps. It's a contrasting image, one that displays them as both regal minstrels and dirty hillbillies. But they fill both roles so well that it's impossible to see one without the other, and All My Friends are Funeral Singers is no exception. Listen to the ghostly "1928" and try not to get swept up in its graceful Dagobah scenery. Or take the album's namesake, "Funeral Singers"--this is one that whispers melancholy in the fog of an outdoor burial. As is the case with all of their albums, each track is dually wired to evoke this Califone aesthetic, causing them to grow on you like respected principles taught by some wise hermit who lives in a hut supported by a whalebone frame.

However, it is important to note that Funeral Singers is also, in some ways, a return to more linear forms. Roots and Crowns (2006), arguably Califone's masterwork, often took dizzy dives into experimentation that bent those swampy and twangy landscapes into bizarre soundscapes and poison-apple faces, but here we see them reeling that creative burst back in to focus more on the traditional song and melody. Opener "Giving Away the Bride" lurches on an uncomfortably similar path to Roots' opener "Pink and Sour," but you still immediately have a sense of normalcy and solid foundational craft. That's not to say that this approach is lesser in ambition; I just think they had some ultra-fantastic ideas cooking with Roots, and fortunately, pursued those ideas into fruition. Funeral Singers is simply more of straightforward project, and rewards in different doses than its predecessor. But those rewards are still rich and haunting.