Description
One afternoon, Eric Bachmanns son returned from school with a sheath of pictures hed drawn, all of them macabre. There were crows and sinister figures with scythes and tombstones, he recalls. On one, he had written Deth, Sweet Deth, and everything clicked in my head. Swet Deth, Bachmanns first album under his Crooked Fingers moniker after a 15-year hiatus, organized itself around the image: its songs are about death, yes, but theres a sweetness to them, a wry sensibility to his lyrics that comes from having experienced many kinds of death and the life that follows in its wake. Crooked Fingers is a historically slippery concept no two albums sound alike or feature the same lineup in studio or on tour. Hearing parts in these songs that called for instruments he didnt play or vocals that werent in his register, Eric found himself expanding the roster of guest musicians further than he had on any album in his catalogue, including Sharon Van Etten (Haunted), The Nationals Matt Berninger (From All Ways), and Superchunks Mac McCaughan (Cold Waves). But first he started with family, friends, and frequent collaborators. Jon Rauhouse plays pedal steel. Bachmanns wife, Liz Durrett, contributes vocals, as do members of his touring band, Skylar Gudasz and Avery Leigh Draut (of Night Palace). There is a freedom to this collection of songs, a groove to them that would belie their agonies and anxieties were mere death the albums point and not what comes before. For Eric Bachmann, that has been growth, as a musician and as a man. Like the tree sprouting from the graveyard on its cover, Swet Deth is surprising and lush, a shock of color against its morbid landscape, proof of life in the shadow of its opposite. RIP Eric Bachmann, one tombstone reads. As Crooked Fingers, hes never felt more alive. Available on CD and vinyl.
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