By Deuce

On Drop of Blood, their latest Long Player, The Divorcees give it to you straight. Everything from chugging down alcohol during the daylight hours to getting hauled off by the boys in blue is artfully detailed in a down home, country twang that’s sure to resonate with audiences of all sorts—most poignantly, perhaps, with the country and western/Americana crowd to which the band seems to be catering.

It’s not easy to tell if these songs are the blues for country music or if these tunes are country for blues music. Either way there’s a definitive blue collar aesthetic that is as undeniably real as it is right over acoustic guitars, driving bass, and live cue sticks.

Nonetheless, the clear standout for this reviewer has to be the opener, “Caledonia Mountain”. There’s a couple tracks of rippling acoustic guitar moving in unison, and that time honored countrified twang of some sort of stringed instrument (a guitar or banjo, likely) preparing you for the next ten tracks to come. But the percussion is refreshing as the breaking of water, and the chord progressions move rapidly at certain points. It illustrates a degree of musical sophistication that holds up on the rest of the LP, yet stands out on its own, regardless.

“Drinkin’ in the Afternoon” is the single and video, and seems to echo sentiments everyone’s felt at some stage in their life if they’ve lived long enough. The drums are super clean on this one with a pure open high hat accentuating the crisp rim shots for the first minute or so of the cut. You get the play-by-play of a late night fight with the vocalist’s beau, him drowning his sorrows in the nearby saloon the subsequent afternoon, and some quality time with the law, to boot. This would certainly be a good number to hear live as its lyrics and rhythm would surely captivate audiences equally well.

“Losing Hand” works in a similar vein, although the deftly quick piano is one of the standouts on this one. Nevertheless, the group doesn’t stray too far from its acoustic guitars and heartfelt lyrics on this song or most of the others, which isn’t a bad thing at all.