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CD Review
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Pitt News, CD Review >>
By JAY HUERBIN
Fiddles, electric guitar, country vocals, a phantom drummer and a murder trial: How much wilder can things get?
The Wilders' Someone's Got to Pay showcases the four members' numerous musical talents, most prominently their fiddle skills and their ability to create a beat without a drummer.
The band, which consists of Ike Sheldon (lead vocals, piano, guitar), Betse Ellis (fiddle), Nate Cawron (bass) and Phil Wade (fiddle, dobro), plays a mix of rock 'n' roll, classic country and blues songs. Confining it to a single genre doesn't do the band's unique sound justice.
Speaking of justice, the legal system receives a significant amount of attention on this album. Wade wrote a series of songs after he served as a juror in a first-degree murder trial in Kansas City, Mo., where a man was tried for shooting his wife in a parking lot after their divorce.
The trial clearly disturbed Wade, and the five-song series tells the dark story. There are very little words to the five songs, but this somehow makes their imagery more vivid.
Sheldon and Wade composed a piano solo as an introduction to each of the parts of "Sittin' on a Jury," and Sheldon beautifully performs them.
These brief intros serve as a buffer from the rest of the album into the more serious tale of the trial.
The first song about the trial is "The Prologue," which begins with a dark, suspenseful piano combined with a Western banjo. If justice had a sound, this would be it.
"The Prosecution" is much more upbeat, with electric guitar and hands clapping to an angry beat.
"The old prosecutor, he got the first turn / Told us how Davey planned his crime … to shoot down poor Lily in her prime," Sheldon sings.
The next part of the trial, "The Defense," has a more miserable melody. It describes how Davey's marriage had gone awry and Lily "took everything he had." Davey's lawyer explained how grief over marriage is a sickness as he tried to plea that Davey was temporarily insane.
"The Verdict" is the climax of the tale as the narrator sings in the same melody as "The Prologue." After seven hours and 43 minutes of deliberation, the jury made its decision.
"We chose to send that boy away for life," Sheldon sings. At the end of each part of "Jury," he sings how he wants to be off the jury. Finally, after the trial is over, he sings about how it has affected him.
"Hey, Mr. Judge, now I'm off this old jury / I don't know how your conscious could be clean / Now when I lay my head on my pillow, I see Davey's face / It haunts me in my dreams," he sings somberly.
The album isn't all gloomy, though. "Sittin on A Jury" only takes up nine of the album's 20 tracks. There are several instrumental songs where the band shows off its talents.
In songs such as "Broken Down Gambler" and "Old Dirty Boot," the fiddle takes center stage as Ellis and Wade show off their skills.
The fiddles are backed by banjos and mandolins to create a do-si-do, square dancing kind of melody. It's difficult not to tap your toe to the music.
Evidence of the Wilders' chemistry is its ability to play without the aid of a drummer.
The harmonies created by the banjo and the dobro behind the fiddles keep rhythm, no drums necessary, and the band jokingly refers to its "phantom drummer."
Sheldon's vocals are also a strong point. Not only does he have great musical range, but he has an astounding variety of tones to his voice. He can sing some songs like a rocker and other songs like an old-time country singer.
These boys aren't just mixing styles, they're diversifying country music.
3.5/5
04/10/08 >> go there
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