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There was a time when the term "country rock" didn't make people cringe. Early pioneers, like the Byrds, tried to strip down both rock and country to get at the heart of American song. It was a noble goal that unfortunately lead to other artists who focused on combining the most bland and mundane elements of each genre. In the last decade many others, notably the five albums of collaborations between Johnny Cash and Rick Ruben, have returned to the hunt for the primal American sound. So it is with Seattle musicians Palodine.
Palodine comes at the problem from, primarily, a rock point of view. The throb and menace heard on their CD "Desolate Son" is the legacy of The Doors and Nick Cave. The twang that accents the songs shifts you out of time. The songs here are contemporary but drag you to earlier, half forgotten, times. Like almost remembered fairy tales there is a haunting sense of loss.
Not that the recording is about loneliness, per se. The simple instrumentation and composition recalls a love affair more than a lost stranger. Palodine understands that there can be a greater gulf between two people when they stand, or lay, next to each other than if they were a thousand miles away.
"Desolate Son" is a beautifully troubling album. It's the CD that a couple puts on when they're first starting a relationship that they realize might not be good for them. A relationship that they've started despite all their misgivings, despite the heart-break of the past. It's the music that plays on a crappy stereo in the middle of the night filling the bedrooms of new lovers. But these are also the songs that will be stuck in people's heads when their lovers have gone for good.
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Palodine
http://www.myspace.com/palodine
Tarnished Records
http://www.tarnishedrecords.com/
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