Country and bluegrass brothers in harmony
Some sounds sound old without becoming nostalgic. Such are the brotherly vocals of Eric and Leigh Gibson whose tight harmonies remain fresh even as they trace back to the Louvins and Everlys. The same is true for their bluegrass quintet, whose instrumentation (banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle and bass) offers tradition, but whose lyrical approach is more back-porch cozy than by-the-numbers festival playing. Even the original “Picker’s Blues†is an original lament rather than a rehashed demonstration, a song of musicians drawn to their travels no matter the personal price, accompanied by superb rolling banjo and flat-picked guitar. Faith and death thread through several songs, including the fatalistic “One Step Closer to the Grave†and the album-closing farewell of Bill Carlisle’s country-gospel classic, “Gone Home.†A more earthly faith is found on the album’s title track, “Iron & Diamonds,†in which the hard, unchanging life of a company-owned mining town is punctuated by the afternoon sunshine of the local minor league baseball team. The difficulties turn philosophical with the balkanization of “Angry Man,†as the Leighs focus on the social stasis bred of endless political bickering. The album’s most visited topic is hearts sought and broken. On the sunnier side, Tom Petty’s “Cabin Down Below†(from 1994’s Wildflowers) is turned from leering to merely urgent as the original’s hard-rock is transformed to a hill-bred courting song. The sparse guitar-and-bass original “Lonely Me, Lonely You†is filled with Roy Orbison-like stalwart agony, and a cover of Faron Young and Roger Miller’s “A World So Full of Love†drops the overt honky-tonk of the original while still hanging on to the pathos. Steve Earle’s “The Other Side of Town†(from 1997’s El Corazón) is rendered as a forlorn Ray Price shuffle, replacing the original’s more dire Hank Williams style, but the brothers’ vocals — solo on the verses, tightly harmonized on the choruses — will still hammer a nail in your heart. The Gibson’s tread traditional ground with their instruments and harmonies, but without the slavish adherence to convention that saps the currency from a great deal of contemporary acoustic string-band music. This is a great spin for country and bluegrass fans alike. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com] 