From the first feedback shocks, the sound of electricity in stereo coursing through currents of air, you know that Songs of Man, the sophomore release from Toronto-based band One Hundred Dollars isn’t your granddad’s country music. A few more seconds into lead track “Ties That Bind,” you’re greeted by a few delicate guitar strums. A few seconds more, and lead singer Simone Schmidt breathes heavily, “It’s a wisdomless will that stays here, boys.” In a moment, the drums swing into high gear and you’re blindsided by a runaway country music train you never saw coming. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Described as the new new country, two-time Polaris Prize longlisters One Hundred Dollars are back with a new album and clearer sound after 2008’s debut Forest of Tears. Released in May of this year, Songs of Man was recorded at Blue Rodeo’s Woodshed Studio over twelve days, where each song was recorded in its own dedicated day from start to finish, allowing each track to develop its own cohesive sound. Produced and mastered by Stew Crookes, who also lends his pedal steel abilities to the band, the sound on Songs of Man is more focused and a little more electrified. Changes in the band’s lineup have contributed to this as well: Ian Russell switches from trusty acoustic to electric guitar on some tracks, David Clarke expands on his measured and exacting percussion (with an occasional jaunt away from the kit entirely) and rookie Kyle Porter takes over bass responsibilities from Paul Mortimer, who has shifted to lead electric guitar (and consistently astounds me in live performance). Mortimer also earns some song-writing credits on Songs of Man alongside core songwriting duo Schmidt and Russell. Instrumentally, One Hundred Dollars has many of the common elements of the new new country revival’s sound: a little twangy pedal steel, some catchy guitar hooks. But where other outfits tend to cling to a countrified lyrical aesthetic, drawing on idealized and sentimental rural motifs, lead singer and lyricist Schmidt offers stark and painfully honest stories and sketches set in a range of locales, several of them surprisingly urban and surprisingly un-country. Yet, several of the scenes staged here are ultra-country in context: Songs of Man are songs of the downtrodden and the downhearted (such as “Work,” a ballad for the underappreciated labourforce; or haunting anti-love song “Waiting on Another”) as well as the disenchanted or the disenfranchised (war ballad “Where the Sparrow Drops”, or “Everybody Wins”, both cheeky and challenging). The lyrics are complex and compelling; totally lacking condescension; motivated by earnest and engaging storytelling. One Hundred Dollars not be your granddad’s country music, but he’d dig it anyways. P.S.: You will, too. Your plans for next Saturday are as follows: trot on down to the Gordon Best Theatre, above the Only Cafe on Hunter Street, on Saturday September 24. Pop in downstairs for (almost) any beer your heart desires and then mosey upstairs for an outstanding night of live music in one of the best venues this city has to offer. Catch local Joe Fortin, who never fails to evoke some tender kind of folkified Jeff Buckley comparison; stay for bluesy-country interpretations by Toronto’s Jennifer Castle; and then let One Hundred Dollars impress the pants off of you, and make you want to listen to country music as the leaves turn to crimson and gold this season. Seriously, they do it to me every time. Ten bones gets you in, save your lunch money, you won’t forgive yourself if you miss it.
Editors’ note: After all this head over to actOUT, the very last Peterborough Pride dance party at Market Hall.
