Drop of a hat and it's already started

If you can't wait until the 24th, to give the new Son Volt best-of a spin, head on over to Rhino's site. While not exactly a cornucopia of previously unreleased material, there is some good stuff to be had. The reading of Woody Guthrie's "I've Got to Know" is quite good and still resonates today. The raw demo version of "Tear-Stained Eye" is great as well. With just Farrar, it sounds very different sans banjo and pedal steel. Very raw and Dylanesque. The album also has the acoustic version of "Looking at the World Through a Windshield" from the Feeling Minnesota soundtrack which I'd never heard before.

I got my grubby little hands on a copy of their new album, Okemah and the Melody of Riot, over the weekend. Yes, I shall buy it when it's released on July 12th. While I haven't gotten a chance to sit down and give my full attention to it, I can say that I really like it so far. As I said in a previous post, "Afterglow 61" sounds like it could have come off of their first album, Trace. It's got lyrics about a guy "electrifying traditional" and heading out on highway 61. With its insistent riff, it'd be great to crank up in your car with the windows down. "Jet Pilot" is pretty heavy - lots of fuzzy, in-your-face guitar. I think it's "Medication" that's got that slow-buring feel led by acoustic guitar. Great tune. Lyrically, Farrar seems to be more politically-inclined. A couple of the tunes, including "Medication", seem to pick up where "Medicine Hat" from Wide Swing Tremelo left off. Overall, the album feels more straightforward than Farrar's solo albums but you can also hear it as a progression from Wide Swing Tremelo in that things are getting less conventional. I'm looking forward to seeing them live.