Over eleven not so short vignettes American alt-country outfit Over The Rhine delve with sincerity and authority in to issues of faith, addiction and love.
They have cultivated rich success in Europe but the band have remained something of an anomaly in their homeland, playing occasional folk festivals and small clubs rather than the theatres they play for on the continent.
Singer Karin Bergquist sits somewhere between the sassy intoxication of The Cardigans' Nina Persson and the richness of Eva Cassidy. Her performance on Spark is nothing short of brilliant. The sucker of a wandering verse and the punch of a soaring chorus underpinned by loose, slow drumming and an ever so slightly out of kilter piano.
Hush Now is a slow waltz in a smoky Parisian bar. The piano of Bergquist's husband Linford Detweiler jams side to side while she croons with more emotion than Cassidy and more straight sex than Tina Arena.
The two nearly split during the making of Drunkard's Prayer. You can hear the restless stress of a band and marriage at breaking point in Little Did I Know, which lets saxophone run over everything else, it is both brutally honest yet points towards healing and hope. You can hear the same pain of contemplating loss on Lookin' Forward - the shortest song on the album and a hint at their country rock influences. A cello rumbles ominously and the drums bash and bash with anger and frustration at the same place. And just like Cassidy cast a serious claim to the best reframing of Yesterday, Bergquist treats the musical classic My Funny Valentine with class and elegance.
Over The Rhine have offered a rare treat, an album that works something like a time capsule for their own relationship without becoming so inward to be inaccessible. The songs are open and occasionally sparse, just like any honest and true relationship.
3.5/4
Other coverage for this album
The Phantom Tollbooth 2005Reviewed by Brian A. SmithThere simply is no justice in this world. This is not a foreign concept to most of us, but allow an illustration: Sheryl Crow sells millions of records, is a radio staple, and seemingly appears on TV quite often. Yet Over the Rhine, with a superior vocal presence in Karin Bergquist, languishes in small clubs, enjoyed by a select few who have the opportunity to hear her perform with her longtime…The Phantom Tollbooth 2005Reviewed by Steve StockmanThat Drunkard's Prayer is a slow-burn, smouldering beautiful thing you can take as read--it is Over the Rhine, for goodness sake! Here they keep with the organic nature of the utterly classic Ohio album and also hanker back to the stripped-back, do-it-in-your-living-room, sound of Good Dog Bad Dog. And there are the usual tasteful traits: wonderful long lists of rhyming, depth charge one liners,…Similar sounding releases
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2003Emmylou HarrisStumble Into GraceMore from Over the Rhine
1999Amateur Shortwave Radio
2004Changes Come
2003Ohio
1996The Darkest Night of the Year
1996Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings
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