We lead off this month with two bands that mix Americana and indie vibes in different measures, with Eric Bachmann’s Crooked Fingers rising from a long hiatus and Portland’s the Delines continuing a decade-long hot streak. Then it’s on to songwriters, from the wit and wisdom of Steve Poltz, to the bucolic serenity of Natalie Jane Hill, to a pair of very different Austin artists in Tamir Kalifa and Calder Allen.
Crooked Fingers — Swet Deth
Whether your entry point for Eric Bachmann was the 1990s indie phenom Archers of Loaf, or his subsequent band Crooked Fingers, or his solo albums (under his own name or the early pseudonym Barry Black), what hit you first likely was the emotional intensity of his music. Swet Deth is his first album under the Crooked Fingers name in 15 years, and it almost feels like he’s been storing up so many poignant experiences that they’ve accrued interest. A heart attack a few years ago apparently got him thinking more about mortality, and then his son came home from school one day with vivid drawings on which he’d scrawled “Swet Deth” (those drawings appear on the album’s cover).
Bachmann also has accrued enough cachet at this point that some pretty major names have been drawn into the Crooked Fingers orbit as guest vocalists. Superchunk’s Mac MacCaughan joins him on the supercharged opener “Cold Waves,” with The National’s Matt Berninger featured on the second track, “From All Ways,” but they’re both outdone by Sharon Van Etten on the fittingly titled “Haunted.” North Carolina’s Skylar Gudasz, part of the Crooked Fingers touring lineup, shines on two tracks, most notably “(I’m Your) Bodhisattva,” written by New Zealand’s Renee-Louise Carafice (whose career seems like a rabbit hole worth exploring). Backing musicians include drummer Jeremy Wheatley and pedal steel ace Jon Rauhouse, but Bachmann handled much of the instrumentation himself, playing guitar, piano and bass. The subject matter on Swet Deth is often heavy, but redemption rises between the lines.
