ALBUM: When The Devil’s Loose by A.A. Bondy

I fell for A.A. Bondy after hearing his Daytrotter session last year. In that five song set, only one track was from his (fantastic) 2007 record, American Hearts. The other four were brand new, but they resonated with me in a way usually reserved for songs already canonized - like I’d been hearing them my whole life. They shook me and made me listen to them over and over. Bondy’s gravelly voice and amazing guitar skill transported me to another place in time, the way the best kind of folk music is supposed to. The last song in particular always made me stop what I was doing and just listen. From its droning harmonica intro to its last repeated lines, that song carries a weight that’s absent in a lot of music - the kind that’s hard to pin down, but demands your attention and invites your hard contemplation, if you’ll give it. It’s a weight that permeates most of Bondy’s music, especially here on his sophomore record, When The Devil’s Loose.

The record opens with “The Mightiest of Guns”, the song that closed his Daytrotter session and won my heart. The harmonica is gone now, leaving instead a subtle sonic curtain for Bondy’s hand-picked guitar to slip through and start the record as he sings of  “a mercy ship to sail you off to sleep, to where the crimson angels swim the deep”. The song still carries the weight it held on that early live version, but this time is imbued with a sense of haunting that lasts throughout the record. On the second track Bondy brings in his full band, who also stay the duration of the record, providing a back-drop for him and his guitar.

The title track (below) is a perfect example of the kind of atmosphere he evokes on these songs - with its swampy guitar and the drums echoing off the walls, it sounds like an old photo album from a bygone era. Everything sounds a little distant, but in a way that makes it all ultimately more interesting. “I Can See The Pines Are Dancing” and “The Mercy Wheel” are sepia-tinged rockers with undeniable melodies, while the albums haunted sense of foreboding comes to a head on “False River”. The quite piano ballad “On The Moon” is a perfect example of the kind of timelessness I hear in most of Bondy’s music – in fact if you told me the track was actually dug up in some archive from the 1920’s, I’d probably believe you. “Oh The Vampyre” is another carry-over from that Daytrotter session - but this one loses a little bit of its bite (sorry) in the transition. That’s only a minor complaint though, especially since the song, which takes a sympathetic look at the blood-sucker’s plight, fits so well into the rest of the albums atmosphere.

In the end the record is just beautiful, and unfolds itself more and more with each listen. Go pick it up, and if you’re in Indiana, be sure to head down to the Video Saloon this Thursday to catch him with Elvis Perkins in Dearland. You might see us there…

mp3: A.A. Bondy – When The Devil’s Loose
from the album When The Devil’s Loose (iTunes/Amazon)

mp3: A.A. Bondy – I Can See the Pines are Dancing
from the album When The Devil’s Loose (iTunes/Amazon)