Castanets
Texas Rose, The Thaw, & The Beasts
Asthmatic Kitty; 2009
I severely wish that indie rock would behind its so-trendy-it’s-almost-passé affection with classic country music. While I fully understand that bands are desirous to locate singer-songwriters from outside their familiar, well-mined milieu of choices, but I’m not sure if I can stand to hear yet another random twenty-something belt out tales of supposedly forlorn woe much longer. Honestly, it takes more than a crusty acoustic guitar, overly weary vocals, and a meandering pedal steel floating through the background to effectively recreate the sounds of Hank Williams, Sr., George Jones, and other old souls. If you’re going to pay appropriate homage to that treasured genre, at least do so with the care, concern, and willingness to re-imagine it for the present age as employed by Raymond Raposa and Castanets.
On Texas Rose, The Thaw, & The Beasts, Raposa and the gaggle of friends he assembled to form the studio version of Castanets for this go-around work up a dense, dusky country record filled with passionate dirges. The musicians take all of the familiar touchstones I referenced earlier and place them alongside the sort of semi-psychedelic electronic noise often employed by indie-folk artists (especially label-mate Sufjan Stevens) to create a truly engaging record.
There is a purposeful, dutiful, steadfast pacing at work with each of the songs on Texas Rose, The Thaw, & The Beasts, one that works well with Raposa’s tired, yet still searching and pleading vocals. As opposed to another album filled with navel-gazing ballads soaked in copious amounts of boozing and brawling, what we have here is a project that comes straight off the open roads and seeps into our hearts and minds. The music of the dueling title tracks “Rose” and “Thaw And The Beasts,” along with “My Heart” and “Lucky Old Moon,” resonate deep in my spirit, as I too have taken long, midnight drives with a mere flask at my side, staring up into the night sky and wishing for what could have been and what still might be.
Castanets nail this mood, this occasionally bleak ambiance, on song after song, and do so in a manner that allows the singer’s temperament to peak on only rare occasions (because we all need to let off steam at some point). Texas Rose, The Thaw, & The Beasts beautifully blends classic country textures with quirky, indie-fied experimentation and the occasional Nels Cline-esque, Wilco-approved guitar jam to stunning effect. As someone who really enjoyed how Bonny “Prince” Billy retooled the feel of mid-period Willie Nelson on Beware earlier this year, I am more than pleased with the music of Raymond Raposa on this album.