Never caught a fever like you.
-The Horrible Crowes, "Ladykiller"
Every year, there are a handful of records that I can't stop spinning. Albums that seep deep beneath your skin and infect you in a way that is hard to articulate. As good music should. This year, for me, these have included albums by Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, Dawes, and The Horrible Crowes (THC).
THC represents the side project of Brian Fallon (of the tremendous Gaslight Anthem) with his guitar technician, Ian Perkins. The album starts out with songs (Sugar, Behold the Hurricane) that don't venture far from the American Rock-n-Roll sound of the Gaslight Anthem. But, from there, Ian and Brian pull out trick after trick in songs that allow them to tap their Tom Waits, U2, and PJ Harvey roots. Fallon's Springsteen-esque growl gets more Waits-esque on songs like "Go Tell Everybody" and "Mary Ann" before he slows down for gorgeous U2-esque songs like "Ladykiller."
Lyrically, Fallon said, "the record is about three relationships that I had -- one when I was 18, one when I was 19 or 20, and my current one now...[They] ended up causing me a lot of grief and a lot of sorrow from the process of living through [them]." While we've felt some of the resulting anger in Gaslight songs like "Film Noir" and remorse in Gaslight songs like "We did it when we were young," this album (musically) let's Fallon put all of his cards (feelings) on the table. Behold the Hurricane portrays a "man being lost." Black Betty & The Moon reflects on a former lover throwing her life away. "Ladykiller" starts out beautifully promising, as Ian sings "I've been around a few times, never caught a fever like you." Then, in his Springsteen-esque growl, Brian comes in singing, "and you must've met a man, tall and handsome at that" and you know the song's headed on a downward spiral of tragedy.
But the reason I love this album is the last two songs, towards which the entire album builds. The penultimate song, "Blood Loss", builds on the pent-up rage seen fleetingly on "Go Tell Everybody". The lyrics cut deep and are tough to swallow, reminiscent of Bob Dylan's Idiot Wind. The song starts slow and, as the guitars uproariously enter, Fallon growls, "I'll tell you when you cried long enough till your blood fills my cup and my footsteps they hung in your hallways enough for you to be truly haunted." The softspoken resignation expressed in the repeated lines "sirens they come and the sirens they leave" allows the song to simmer to its finish.
If Fallon ended the album here, you'd either be depressed or ready to give up on him as a masochist who takes things too personally. But then comes the finisher, "I believe Jesus brought us together." Fallon goes for a minimalistic style here, crooning softly and soulfully over a muted organ. But despite its minor-key tempo, this song holds out the most hope of any on the album. On lines like "did you say your lovers were liars? all my lovers were liars too" and "In the engines of desire, in the come down daylight, I believe my trouble and your trouble shook hands," Fallon recognizes that every human carries baggage. From past experiences and relationships. Into present experiences and relationships. But he also recognizes the other side of the coin: how beautiful relationships can be. The song, and the album at that, ends with the beautiful lines "did you wanna come over? I was just about to miss you. did you say you were lonely? I was just about to call you. do you believe there's a heaven? do you think we're invited?"
