va too late to pray

Various Artists - Too Late to Pray: Defiant Chicago Roots available on Bloodshot Records (by Bryant Liggett)
 
 
Dubbed The Second City, Chicago, Illinois should be considered first when it comes to lively music scenes, particularly when considering insurgent country, as continues to be a leader for musicians that have found a way to Punk up Classic Country. A major player in that scene is Bloodshot Records, who had a logo to match the music with a skull sporting a pompadour. The Chicago-based Indie label proudly promotes bands who find influences like Black Flag as important as Johnny Cash.  Any compilation from Bloodshot Records is a who’s who of Alt Country artists to fill out a playlist. The latest is Too Late to Pray: Defiant Chicago Roots, a 22-song collection of weepy ballads and twanged-up cover tunes.
 
Wild Earp & The Free for Alls kick off Too Late to Pray: Defiant Chicago Roots with a hopefully tall tale, a sad ode to “The Last Honky-Tonk in Chicago,” where ‘all the bar flies have all been rendered homeless, all the cowboys are wandering the town’. Bloodshot Records’ Jon Langford and his band Hillbilly Lovechild lead with a classic Langford stomper in “I Am a Big Town” while Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds bring some psychedelic gutter rock to the assembled tracks with “Lay Me Down”. Robbie Fulks tosses in a twangy bluegrass ballad with “Love Ain’t Hardly Alive” as Freakwater make a minimalist heartbreaker with a cover of The Rolling Stones with “Sway” while Kelly Hogan is super sultry with the lounge-ready “Gotta Have My Baby Back.” The Handsome Family lend the album a taste of electro-goth with a take on Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song”, where ambient pedal steel riffs layer over programmed drum-beats and synth-effects. The cut is an ending that fits with the overall vibe of Too Late to Pray: Defiant Chicago Roots where liberties are expected and necessary as Bloodshot Records lobs curveballs as the pitch of choice.  (by Bryant Liggett)
 
Listen and buy the music of Too Late to Pray: Defiant Chicago Roots from AMAZON
 
Visit the Bloodshot Records website to learn more

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