featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
June 12, 2022
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
There's already been some really good writing around SG Goodman's second full-length, Teeth Marks (see Silas House's terrific piece from Bitter Southerner, or Stereogum's song-by-song excavation). Even more of a treasure is the Western Kentucky resident's own piece for No Depression, where she speaks to her process of channeling emotions and psychological trauma into music.
Goodman's debut arrived during the first uncertain Summer of the pandemic. Old Time Feeling explored Southern myth and meaning, particularly as they define and clash with the identity of a queer farmer's daughter. From the title track: Stick around and work your way through / Be the change that you hope to find. The collection ended the year as our favorite debut, meriting a Top 10 ranking alongside far more established artists like Isbell, Sturgill and her recent touring partner John Moreland.
That Southern blood continues to flow throughout Teeth Marks, though these new songs deal more with the psyche and with trauma: the marks that love, or lack of love, leaves behind. Where Feeling dwelt snugly within a folk and country pocket, tracks like the title cut expand boldly from that comfort zone, leaning into electric guitar and production touches. "Teeth Marks" floats on a spectral feedback, with Goodman taking stock of an unrequited affection: Well it's just like you to say something smart / Telling me how this situation shouldn't break my heart / But it did.
Teeth Marks then sets forth to juxtapose these more internal moments with songs that deploy a fuller, more extroverted sound. The karmic rocker "All My Love Is Coming Back To Me" leads into the acoustic "Heart Swell" and its ghostly call-and-response backing vocal: And the cicada choir / Is my backing band / I join in off key / Country mumble / Sang slow and hard to understand. The former's start-and-stop garage rock allows Goodman to demonstrate a greater confidence in her vocals, simultaneously fragile and fiery, nervy (to borrow Jewly Hight's spot-on descriptor) and movingly human.
This contrast is most potent in the twin pillars of "If You Were Someone I Loved" and "You Were Someone I Loved", listed separately here but intended to be heard as a piece. Beginning with Goodman's remarkable howl, the song starts as a brawny electric rocker, the narrator turning a blind eye towards a suffering addict. Breaking down into a meandering instrumental passage, the second movement emerges as a mournful acapella holler, the singer's strikingly unadorned voice. Where one passage is delivered from the voice of a person lacking empathy, the second is riddled with a mother's profound compassion and bottomless grief.
Teeth Marks moves restlessly from one trauma to another, from the loss of an addicted child to the scars left by an unfeeling capitalist system. "Work Until I Die" lands an unanticipated punch to the gut, with its flat punky delivery and its pogoing bassline. Goodman's song of the South is a breakneck journey through birth-school-work-death, whipping up an ersatz dinner prayer in its whirlwind: Bless this food to our bodies / And our bodies to your service / In the company's holy name / Amen.
Even in the stylistic back-and-forth of SG Goodman's new sessions, the writer's own compassion and empathy are brilliantly conveyed. In her own piece for No Depression, she acknowledges her near obsessive focus on saying everything that needs to be said in a song. "Patron Saint of the Dollar Store" is a lovely acoustic moment, with Goodman's breathy delivery: Know I found heaven / Lying in a woman's arms. Teeth Marks closes with "Keeper of the Time", restating the record's thesis of how a body remembers, and spinning into Goodman's rockstar outro.
On "Heart of It", SG Goodman sings: Honey, why would you ever take that trip down south / I let you visit for free / Each time I open my mouth. In her new collection, Goodman succeeds in incorporating her own story and sound into an updated song of the South.
ROUTES-cast JUNE 12, 2022
- Zach Bryan, "Sober Side of Sorry" American Heartbreak (Belting Bronco, 22)
- Angel Olsen, "All the Flowers" Big Time (Jagjaguwar, 22)
- American Aquarium, "Things We Lost Along the Way" Chicamacomico (Losing Side, 22)
- Teddy & the Rough Riders, "Hey Richard" Teddy & the Rough Riders (Appalachia, Jul 1)
- Rachel Brooke, "True Love Will Find You In the End" single (Brooke, 22) D
- Band of Heathens, "Carry Your Love" single (BoH, 22) D
- Gabbard Brothers, "Little Mama" Gabbard Brothers (Karma Chief, Jul 15) D
- Whiskey Myers, "The Wolf" Tornillo (Wiggy Thump, Jul 29)
^ SG Goodman, "Patron Saint of the Dollar Store" Teeth Marks (Verve, 22)
- Joe Purdy, "Hard to Be a Prophet" Desert Outtakes Vol 1: Folk-Slinger (Mudtown Crier, 22) D
- Joe Pug, "I Do My Father's Drugs (feat. Courtney Hartman)" Nation of Heat Revisited (Soundly, Jul 22)
- David Newbould, "Blood On My Hands" Power Up! (Blackbird, 22)
- Alex Dupree, "The Seer" Thieves (Keeled Scales, Jul 15)
- Courtney Marie Andrews, "Satellite" Loose Future (Fat Possum, Oct 7) D
- Jonah Tolchin, "Aliens" Lava Lamp (Yep Roc, Jul 15)
- Bonnie Light Horseman, "California" Rolling Golden Holy (37d03d, Oct 7) D
- Sadies, "All the Good" Colder Streams (Yep Roc, Jul 22)
- Cass McCombs, "Unproud Warrior" Heartmind (Anti, Aug 19) D
- Nina Nastasia, "This is Love" Riderless Horse (Temporary Residence, Jul 22) D
- Jack White, "If I Die Tomorrow" Entering Heaven Alive (Third Man, Jul 22)
- Adia Victoria, "In the Pines" single (Atlantic, 22) D
- Arlo McKinley, "Back Home (feat. Logan Halstead)" This Mess We're In (Oh Boy, Jul 15)
- Michaela Anne, "Oh To Be That Free Again" Oh To Be That Free (Yep Roc, 22)
- Andrew Combs, "High & Dry" 3Sirens Presents: With Love Part 1 (3Sirens, Jul 8) D
- Laura Veirs, "Eucalyptus" Found Light (Raven Marching Band, Jul 8)
- Logan Halstead, "Kentucky Sky" OurVinyl Sessions EP (OurVinyl, 22) D
- Lera Lynn, "I'm Your Kamikaze" Something More Than Love (Lera Lynn, Jul 15)
- Patty Griffin, "Don't Mind (feat. Robert Plant)" Tape (PGM, 22)
- Mapache, "Man and Woman" Roscoe's Dream (Innovative Leisure, 22)
- Nicki Bluhm, "Sweet Surrender" Avondale Drive (Compass, 22)
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