BECKY WARREN - the SiCK SEASON

ROUTES & BRANCHES  

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

November 1, 2020

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

I think sometimes that americana music has an authenticity problem.  As songwriters (or blogwriters), we tend to lean too hard on cliches.  For my own blog, I try every week to tease out the more genuine stuff from the hackneyed pack.  I champion lyrical depth and a sharp artistic edge.  When I write, I try hard to create original content (though I'm afraid I too lean on crutch words and phrases).  It's not easy to be authentic, but when I find it in a songwriter I'm going to celebrate it.  

Being original, being genuine doesn't mean that an artist needs to reinvent the wheel.  The notes and the words have all been used, nearly all the raw materials of our kind of music are familiar.  Something can be said for finding new combinations of these, but what sets an artist apart from the others is something less quantifiable.  This is what I call edge.  As a writer, I try to establish an edge of my own.  As a songwriter, Becky Warren has edge.  

I heard it and shared it with her debut record, 2016's War Surplus, a collection that told the complicated story of a couple struggling to navigate the aftermath of the husband's deployment.  I called her a relative unknown who emerges as a fully formed writer who can do sassy, heartfelt and pissed as well as any bigger name.  I celebrated the arrival of 2018's Undesirable by christening Warren among the best writers of her generation.  And this all came following a promising stint with her college act, Great Unknowns.  

Part of Becky Warren's edge is in her empathy for the voice of the other.  On Undesirable, her stories came from spending time with the unhoused population of Nashville.  Her new collection, The Sick Season, might have posed her most challenging project to date.  The new songs tell her own story, a tale of falling into a deep depression on the heels of that last record.  

There's a tough-as-nails honesty to this third project, a raw directness that lays itself out in Warren's lyrics as well as in Avril Smith's up-front guitars.  On the hard-riding "Dickerson Pike", Warren draws an unglamorous picture of her self-imposed exile under the influence of her depression: I've been in this place so long / I've named the bannisters.  While she spares no details in communicating the claustrophobia of the disease, Sick Season isn't an unnecessarily indulgent or introverted collection.  The arrangements themselves are more rock-oriented than we've heard from those first two records, allowing Warren to deliver her heavy message atop unexpectedly driving rhythms.  "Good Luck" plays like an early rock 'n roll cut, even as it opens with a bold image: I'm a tornado / Blazing 'cross the blistering sky / Rolling over the houses of people I love / Sleeping unaware.  

Becky Warren's edge cuts through with the band she's selected to generate this noise.  Most notably, aside from bassist Jeremy Middleton, these players are all women, from Avril Smith's guitar to Megan Jane's aggressive drums and producer Jordan Brooke Hamlin.  They take unexpected risks on "Appointment With the Blues" and "Favorite Bad Penny", pieces that lean towards a Lucinda Williams accent on rock 'n blues.  Drums and guitar simmer and spark beneath "Penny", like a scrappy junkyard outfit as Warren sings: Electricity buzzes beneath my evening gown.  "Drunk Tonight" adds horns to the mix, one of the songs that also speaks to the artist's ability to land a strong melodic hook: Let's just tell ourselves oblivion's our religion / Let's throw our hearts into the black and watch them sink.  

The best of Warren's new record emerges from this hinterland, where her hard truths meet her enticing delivery.  The beautiful "Tired of Sick" reels back the rock elements, pairing her character worn voice with that of Emily Saliers from Indigo Girls (Warren did the same with Amy Ray on her previous package).  The song delivers a poignant, yearning wish to return back to the easy familiarity and relative irresponsibility of youth: I've been in these sheets so long, it's a home.  Arguably the album's highlight, "Me and These Jeans" begins: It's August, and I blew every chance again to be someone.  Warren nails that palpable sense of self-doubt and uncertainty, and emerges from her new songs as a very reliable narrator as she reports from the depths of her emotional struggle: Me and these jeans / I've been wearing for weeks / We're out on the town / If the town is my mind / If it ain't, then we're back on the couch / Not figuring anything out.  

Voices like Becky Warren's are crucial to the propagation and relevance of our kind of music.  She's an artist whose music tells stories that we need to hear, whether that's a portrait of an unhoused woman selling newspapers or the travelogue of an artist wandering the labyrinth of depression.  We need to hold more of our writers to this kind of standard, to give the Big Names of our genre a break from the spotlight and to celebrate those who are wielding a sharper writerly edge.  The Sick Season boldly portrays the reality of mental illness, but also rewards listeners with a terrific roots rock record.  

- Sturgill Simpson, "Sometimes Wine" Cuttin' Grass Vol 1: Butcher Shoppe Sessions  (High Top Mt, 20)

- Kelsey Waldon, "Mississippi Goddam (feat. Adia Victoria, Kyshona Armstrong)" They'll Never Keep Us Down EP  (Oh Boy, Nov 20)  D

- Alabama Slim, "Forty Jive" The Parlor  (Cornelius Chapel, Jan 29)  D

- Drive-by Truckers, "Tough to Let Go" New OK  (ATO, 20)

- Whitehorse, "Devil's Got a Gun" Fate of the World Depends On This Kiss  (Six Shooter, 12)

- Low Cut Connie, "Quiet Time" Private Lives  (Contender, 20)

- Nathaniel Rateliff, "There is a War (feat. Kevin Morby)" single  (Marigold Project, 20)  D

- Austin Lucas, "Shaking" Alive in the Hot Zone  (Cornelius Chapel, 20)

- Ben Weaver, "40 Watt Bulb" Stories Under Nails  (Fugawee Bird, 04)

^ Becky Warren, "Dickerson Pike" The Sick Season  (Warren, 20)

- Dave Hause, "Great American Going Out of Business Sale (feat. Will Hoge)" Paddy EP  (Soundly, 20)

- Lee Bains III & Glory Fires, "2-4-6-8 Motorway" single  (Don Giovanni, 20)  D

- Frontier Ruckus, "Dark Autumn Hour" Orion Songbook  (Quite Scientific, 08)

- Bailey Bigger, "Weight of Independence" single  (Big Legal Mess, 20)  D

- Rachel Brooke, "Great Mistake" Loneliness in Me  (Brooke, 20)

- Aaron Lee Tasjan, "Up All Night" Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!  (New West, Feb 5)  D

- Frank Turner & Jon Snodgrass, "Fleas" Buddies 2: Still Buddies  (Xtra Mile, Nov 13)

- Wilco, "Shot in the Arm (Live at the Boulder Theater)" Summerteeth (Deluxe Edition)  (Rhino, Nov 6)

- Sierra Ferrell, "Why'd Ya Do It" single  (Rounder, 20)

- Jim White, "Monkey in a Silo" Misfit's Jubilee  (Fluff & Gravy, 20)

- Shemekia Copeland, "Uncivil War" Uncivil War  (Alligator, 20)

- Cale Tyson, "Oaxaca" Cheater's Wine EP  (Tyson, 14)

- John Murry, "Shade & Honey" Tilting at Windmills  (Submarine Cat, 20)

- William Elliott Whitmore, "MK Ultra Blues" I'm With You  (Bloodshot, 20)

- Ward Davis, "Threads" Black Cats & Crows  (Davis, Nov 20)

- Gillian Welch, "Peace in the Valley" Boots No 2: Lost Songs Vol 3  (Acony, Nov 13)  D

- Great Peacock, "Strange Position" Forever Worse Better  (Soundly, 20)

- David Quinn, "1000 Miles" Letting Go  (Quinn, 20)

- Brent Cobb, "Good Times and Good Love" Keep 'Em On They Toes  (Ol' Buddy, 20)

- Karen O & Willie Nelson, "Under Pressure" single  (Rockers to Swallow, 20)  D

We'll quote the Kurt Weill here: And the days dwindle down / To a precious few / September / November ... This time of year those new records can be fewer and farther between.  This week, however, we did add some higher profile promises to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster.  Gillian Welch continue to share very strong stuff from her vaults.  She'll be adding yet another on November 13 with Boots Vol 2: Lost Songs Vol 3 (Acony).  Kelsey Waldon will follow up last year's full length with an EP called They'll Never Keep Us Down.  Expect that one via Oh Boy on November 20.  She's already released a strong 2020 studio record early in the year.  Now Margo Price will close us out with a live collection.  Perfectly Imperfect At the Ryman will land under your tree via Loma Vista come December 4.  Finally, longtime R&B followers will know that I'm quite fond of a quality holiday record.  I never expected one from Calexico.  Save some space under that tree for Seasonal Shift, which will land that same day, courtesy of Anti.  

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