Stained with the sort of emotion that comes with loving an artistic medium more than life itself, the vocals we hear in songs like “Wish the Wars Were All Over,” the brittle “Hard Times Come Again No More” and surprisingly warm “Tribulations” shape the mood of the music as much as any lyrics do on their own. In all three of these tracks, and all of the others featuring melodic singing on Appalachian Road Show’s absolutely spellbinding Tribulation, tone is employed as a means of advancing a narrative as frequently as poetry is. There are no facets made of filler in these songs; truth be told, if Appalachian Road Show sticks something on one of their albums, we can all rest easy knowing it’s going to be nothing less than top shelf content.
Despite the growing trend in their genre’s underground, this is one band that clearly takes old school bluegrass aesthetics a lot more seriously than some of their peers do. There’s an investment in the lurching groove of “Beneath That Willow Tree,” the spinning “99 Years and One Dark Day,” instrumental wonder “The Appalachian Road” and the provocative “Sales Tax on the Women,” that has absolutely nothing to do with finances. The players’ own personalities are accessible in this material, whether originally penned or covered from the mighty Appalachian songbook, and there’s scarcely a moment in which they sound like anything other than genuine players who only desire to be real with their audience. There’s mutual respect between the material and the masterful musicians giving it life here, and that’s more than I can say for a lot of the mainstream releases I’ve been tasked with reviewing lately.
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“Gospel Train,” the unfiltered spoken word of “Rev. Jasper Davis – Old Time Preaching on Tribulations,” fury-beat “Goin’ to Bring Her Back” and haunting “Don’t Want to Die in the Storm” are each excellent examples of concerted aesthetical and compositional contrast at its finest. To simplify; while there’s no debating whether or not its mixture of songs, spoken word storytelling and abstract preaching makes for a strange sonic cocktail on this occasion, it’s the apparent contradictions in the content here that makes Tribulation such an interesting listen. Underneath its impeccably smart yet ruggedly rough and tumble cosmetics, there’s a soulfulness derived from a diversity of influences in Appalachian Road Show that speaks for itself when calculating their present day value to bluegrass fans everywhere.
If you’re just finding out about Appalachian Road Show for the first time this May, I would recommend Tribulation as a good starter selection right out of the gate. Here, the band really puts on a Hollywood-quality performance in celebrating a heritage as old as it is honestly attractive to this very day, and though it’s designed more for puritans than it is the casual fan, I think it could do a lot with regards to appealing to younger audiences interested in bluegrass history. In this sense, Appalachian Road Show are giving quite the service with what they’re choosing to release professionally; by carrying forth the music of their ancestors, they invite a new legacy – and a new generation of stalwarts – into one of America’s most treasured artistic gems.
Troy Johnston