Something of the Ezra Furman, Hold Steady, Mid-West 'in the gutter but looking at the stars' spirit from Charleston, Carolina's Shovels & Rope and their new album By Blood. Powered by the yearning joint vocals of married couple Michael Trent and Carry Ann Hearst, there's absolutely nothing here that you haven't heard before. This is a seam that has been mined to near exhaustion over the years but there's good reason for that. Each generation has its own tails of failure and frustration to tell.
Shovels & Rope are weariless toilers for the cause. Each tune tells a similar tale, 'saminess' is the records definite achilles' heel, but there are plenty of rousing tunes too, some of them pushing towards the exceptional, particularly the title track, the best thing here. You just know this particular picture will end with the pair of them staking everything on that one last throw of the dice. You're never quite sure how that one is going to turn out. By Blood is a B-Movie essentially, and one you've seen many times before before, but there are many worse ways to spend thirty five minutes of your day. I enjoyed mine anyhow.
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