Guaranteed Reviews

True Freedom (2008) Rancho Deluxe 

How I Feel About It *♥ 

I don’t go out of my way to listen to country or any other music associated with it. It’s unfortunate that no one else here at Guaranteed Reviews would review this album, someone with greater ‘twang’ acumen, but after my initial fears subsided, and after a listen or two, I realized I was the lucky one. 

I feel that this release from Rancho Deluxe is an extremely thoughtful production, from the lyrics to the tweaking of the knobs. This music invites you to relax by the fire while the main writer, Mark Adams, regales you with tales of interpersonal tragedy, criminal pasts and man’s best friend (–what county album would be any good without at least one song about the latter!) The sound is big, lush and the musicians are clearly very comfortable with the arrangements. In turn, this renders the listener relaxed, and in the end you feel like you know Mr. Adams; that it’s ok to raid his stash of beer while he rocks in his chair singing songs. I’ve never felt this comfortable with country music, and that must mean that Rancho Deluxe is not only winning new fans for themselves but for country music in general.  The arrangements mix country conventions and a more urbane musical sensibility. They don’t pound you over the head with endless 2/4 beats, but they also don’t attempt to inject James Brown into the mix. That is, these songs are a synthesis of traditional country and modern pop tastes rather than cobbled together blocks of different genres intended to impress two different constituencies. Though the music is nothing like it, the tenor of the album reminds me of the Dixie Chicks’ Taking the Long Way: steeped in convention, but willing to give convention the finger too, if it suits the song. The album features some fantastic lap steel, dobro, fiddle and vocal harmony work, blended handily by one Mr. Vaught, who also plays some keyboards on the album. There is some blistering guitar work on the album, but especially in the instrumental Templeton Gap. For those who like traditional country, there’s still plenty of furious pickin’ to be enjoyed here. 

What I Think About It *

From what little I understand of country, Mr. Adams lyrics are that part of this operation which most clearly bucks convention. His voice is almost perfectly conventional, a deep rich baritone with excellent elocution. You don’t have to refer to a sleeve to determine what the lyrics are, and his lyrics are direct. Not only does Mr. Adams style invite you into his pantry, his voice tells you that (for the evening at least) his life is an open book; that if you don’t want absolute candor, you might as well hit the road. There’s something else about his voice which I believe to be rare in any genre of music, but particularly effective in country: it is both happy (content) and melancholy at the same time. When he sings about his sadness, he doesn’t require you to retrace his path. He doesn’t require you to relive each broken bottle or friend’s death. He knows you’ve been through it too, and he’s not whining about it or complaining. He reports to you with humor and grace. The unconventional bits took me by surprise. After Too Late, a song in which he laments the sudden death of a friend, he sings a song called Valley of the Bears. This is a slower piece with a fiddle filling in the gaps, but the lyrics are what raised my eyebrows: 

“In the morning I drink Yerba Matte, from a gourd…” 

WHAT?! What did he just sing? Here I was under the impression that I was listening to a country singer from the Southwest, but this sounds like my yoga instructor in Seattle. Is this the advent of the heretofore unimagined genre Hippie/Alt/Country? 

There’s something else that’s striking about Valley of the Bears. It’s sung to his dog, not about it. This is a fascinating twist to a convention. Again, I apologize for my limited knowledge of the country medium, but dogs were always used as blackmail between feuding couples, and the object of the songs dealing with that issue was to illustrate how people could be bad to one another. Valley of the Bears is sung to the pet as an end unto itself. Must be a great dog.  In Semi-Cool Cube, he sings: