CD Review: Railroad Earth, Elko

There is no British band remotely equivalent to Railroad Earth. They play what I think is called 'progressive bluegrass'. It sounds like one part American folk, one part prog-rock, and one part jam band. RRE are in their element on stage, as this double live set shows. Some of their songs extend to 10 or even 15 minutes long, but never descent into directionless noodling, even though some contain two, three or even four solos. Some of the most amazing solos come from violin player Tim Carbone.

Although there's no hint of this on the liner notes, Scott tells me it's recorded entirely on acoustic instruments, although a lot of it's fed through guitar affects. If you didn't know, you'd swear most of the guitars were electric, and John Skehan's mandolin was an electric piano. Todd Sheaffer's distorted guitar even has some Rotheryesque moments. High spot for me is the lengthy "Hunting Song", with Schaeffer and Carbone swapping solos. The whole album is pretty amazing stuff, some incredible virtuosity, and I wish I could get the chance to see them live.

Posted by TimHall at March 15, 2006 10:09 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Yup, all acoustic. Sure, through effects, but here's a photo set to show 'em live at a small gig last Autumn:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrion/sets/1350286/

On Elko, I love Hunting Song. It's often paired with a jazzy tune called Black Bear, which results in a very cool descent into the slow lumbering bear on the bass out of Hunting Song.

Highlight for me is Warhead Boogie, in the first round of solos when Todd's going wild on the guitar, then Timmy on fiddle, back into Todd before the final verse.

John would love to come over to the UK to play some festivals. Probably not this year, but it wouldn't surprise me to see it happen next year.

We're seeing them tomorrow night on Long Island... :)

Posted by: Scott on March 17, 2006 04:50 PM


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