Back in early 2007 I caught A.A. Bondy opening up for Bright Eyes at NY’s Bowery Ballroom. Despite never having heard or heard of Bondy prior to that evening I was pretty sure I was hearing something special. Armed with an acoustic guitar, a small arsenal of harmonicas, and a batch of truly resonating folk songs, Bondy treated the Conor Oberst fans who showed up early to a remarkable 45 minutes of music. Many of those songs soon found their way onto his terrific American Hearts LP, originally released by Superphonic Records later that year (and featured among my favorites of ‘07) and then reissued by Fat Possum in 2008. American Hearts has demanded many return listens over the past 2 years and has only grown in stature as one of my favorite records I’ve come across since starting this blog. Natch, I was excited a few months back to hear that Bondy would release the follow up, When The Devils’ Loose, on September 1, again through Fat Possum.
Like its predecessor, When The Devil’s Loose once again draws heavily from the vast pool of traditional folk and blues music. Bondy’s influences (Dylan, Young, Guthrie, etc) and contemporaries (Felice Brothers, J Tillman, Roadside Graves) are easy enough to recognize in his songs - he’s not so much trying to re-imagine the great American songbook as continue its story. And that he does, once again, with startling results. “When The Devil’s Loose”, “A Slow Parade”, and “The Mercy Wheel” all benefit from their fuller arrangements, swaying with lilting, narcotic grooves. The elegiac piano ballad “On The Moon” is a drop-dead gorgeous love song, while the harrowing “Oh The Vampyre” imagines its narrator as a restless, displaced creature of the night. “Mightiest of Guns” comes closest to recalling American Hearts’ starker solo moments, while the buoyant near-pop of “I Can See The Pines Are Dancing” sounds like nothing he has done before. Bondy’s aching voice though, full of grit and disarming Southern cracks, is still his most potent weapon. When The Devil’s Loose is another stunner from Bondy and comes filled with the kind of authentic, slow-burning hymns that do the American songbook proud.
MP3 :: When The Devil’s Loose
MP3 :: I Can See The Pines Are Dancing
(from When The Devil’s Loose. Buy here)
Read PHW’s 2007 Year In Review feature/interview with Bondy here.
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Check out Bondy on tour:
SEPT. 8 BOSTON, MA GREAT SCOTT
SEPT. 9 NEW YORK, NY MERCURY LOUNGE
SEPT. 10 WASHINGTON, DC ROCK AND ROLL HOTEL
SEPT. 11 PHILADELPHIA, PA KUNG FU NECKTIE
SEPT. 12 PITTSBURGH, PA BRILLOBOX
SEPT. 14 KNOXVILLE, TN PILOT LIGHT
SEPT. 15 CHAPEL HILL, NC LOCAL 506
SEPT. 16 ATHENS, GA TASTY WORLD
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