Alaska’s Blackwater Railroad Company initially started as a community band over a decade ago, so it’s fitting with tradition that the core group that makes up the band would call on fellow musicians, recruiting members of the Muskeg Collective (a group made up of independent Juneau, Alaska musicians and songwriters) to help fill out the sound on their latest, A Lovely Place To Die. The result feels like a modern-day folk/Americana hootenanny – with a freewheeling sound that at times comes off as refreshingly improvised.
The album starts off solid enough with the first two tracks, if a bit traditional, but by the time the band kicks into the acoustic ballad “Rock And Roll Man” (a song that sounds very un-rock and roll, by the way), the band’s songwriting and musical strength really shines through. The addition of sax throughout the track – an instrument that resurfaces throughout the rest of the album – as well as the Rhodes organ goes to show this is more than just a band raised on Pete Seeger and old Appalachian folk records. Despite being a folk group, there are obvious influences here way beyond that genre that make for a compelling mix of traditional and modern music. Their evolution from a conventional string band to a full-fledged folk/roots band is evident throughout the record.
“Moving Trees,” an upbeat, piano-heavy track is one of the best moments on the record as is “Shape Of Things,” a song that builds quicky and has a 1950s vibe to it and “No Doubt About It,” a song that sounds deceptively simple, but lyrically is one of their strongest moments.
The album title is apt as the music is far from being an exercise in melancholy but also has a realistic bent once you listen to the lyrics. The band says they write a lot about what they feel it is to be an Alaskan, but the stories they tell here on A Lonely Place To Die, both the personal and the fictional, are relatable to just about anyone regardless of geography.
