
Starving Winter Report
When your head is hitting the ground; when you're picking gravel from your knees; when you've spent the night gathering up your clothes, Exile on Main Street and Ooh La La LPs she threw out the window onto the lawn the night before--then you're ready for Deadstring Brothers.
Starving Winter Report, Deadstring Brothers’ debut Bloodshot release, pulses with exuberant arrangements painted with the nostalgic call of the Rhodes piano, Stax-worthy horns and lonesome-prairie pedal steel. Frontman Kurt Maschke's warm and rolling lyrics and rock chanteuse Masha Marijieh's sultry vocals are the spine of the band (the soaring duet "Sacred Heart" being but one example); sustaining vocal harmonies so sweet and inseverable a crowbar couldn't pry them loose. It's an album with an undeniable flair that cries out for some big speakers, a Detroit rag top with a case of Stroh's in the trunk, and a reason to get good and GONE.
Littered with themes of dragged-out battles both won and lost, Deadstring Brothers have come out the other side all the wiser, with a record powerful enough to pierce your heart after the first listen. Sharp, nicotine-tinged odes teeter with the right amount of nostalgic spirit and rock sentiment (check out that excellent cover of the Band's "Get Up Jake" for ample proof); hearkens to a time well before we felt compelled to add the "classic" in front of "rock." The 'String Bros show it ain't dead.
CHOICE CUTS:
Sacred Heart
Get Up Jake
Talkin' Born Blues
Moonlight Only Knows