CHILD OF CALAMITY

by The Pine Box Boys

label: Hi Horse Records

(2008)

review by Garrett Cook

10.19.2009

Child of Calamity by the Pine Box Boys is just that and in all of the best ways. It is the shitkicking, moonshining, war whooping stars and barred bastard child of Dylan’s Nashville Skyline and the Rob Zombie’s Hellbilly Deluxe. The difference? Both Dylan and Zombie, while they have strong country influences are not half so undiluted as the Pine Box Boys. The titular tough guy brag starts the album off with a bang and reveals something of what you’re in for. Vocalist Lester “Tombstone” Raww delivers with twang, howl and growl, plus an exuberant “yeeeehawww!”; a triumphant war whoop that defines this album extremely well. From the moment you hear Lester’s vocals and Big Possum Carvidi’s fiddle stylings, you’ll be hooked. The Pine Box Boys are really somethin’.

With lyrics like “as a boy, I found a nest of vipers/and I slumbered there amongst them/and I dreamt of all the men I’d slaughter/when I awoke I ate up all the snakes/for I found myself a-hungered/with a whoop! I took their blood for water…” As I said, hell of a song to start off an album, in the fine tradition of both Beowulf and Davy Crockett.

The second song, “Pardon Me, Ginger” is my favorite of the album and is sure to end up on many an i-pod. The chorus “pardon me, Ginger for bargin’ in/but there’s trouble down at the cotton gin/and the boy you love, he won’t be comin’ back again” explodes with fun and energy. A trace of ragtime influence makes it extremely effective. I find myself humming this constantly.

The more sedate,” Pukin’ Blood, Spittin’ Teeth, Bein’ High” is mournful but funny and has a very quotable chorus. “An Unkindness” is clever, very traditional country with American folk roots showing through, as is “Hair of Gold”. I didn’t like these as much as the other tracks, but the album picks up again with “O Mercy, O, Meredith” (which is a like a more conservative one of Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads from the album of the same name). “The Undertaker’s Prayer” is pretty solid and “Don’t Ask Me to Stop” is beautifully played and soulfully. “The Maiden’s Eye” returns the album to morbid, frenetic energy and I like it a lot. Other than “Pardon Me, Ginger”, “Child of Calamity” and the next track “Dark of the Holler”, this for me, was the best song on the album, another murder ballad about a salacious cyclops full of feeling, raw power and skill. “Dark of the Holler” and “Gravedigger” keep up the momentum. While the Gospel-tinged “A Ship Lost at Sea” seems out of place, but the vocals are quality. “To The Blue”, a duet with Greta Boesel is a refreshing surprise and really gives the rhythm section, Col. Timothy Leather and Steven “Your Uncle” Dodds a chance to shine. When the Pine Box Boys conclude Child of Calamity with “The Pallbearers” you will find yourself missing them.

The Pine Box Boys are a kickass country curiosity that takes the genre into the dark, mythic folksy realm the genre came from, a reminder that America has as much dark magic in the land as Europe.