Whiskeytown
Strangers Almanac

First Appeared in The Music Box, August 1998, Volume 5, #8

Written by John Metzger

Whiskeytown seems to have a really tough time keeping a band together. At the core of the group are singer/guitarist David Ryan Adams and violinist/backing vocalist Caitlin Cary. Other than that, the ensemble seems to change quite dramatically from month to month. Almost in spite of itself, Whiskeytown has concocted Strangers Almanac, a rather endearing collection of songs. Inn Town is a beautiful country-influenced ballad, while Adams lines Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart and Houses of the Hill with a subtle banjo undercurrent. Elsewhere, Avenues is haunting, lonely, and desolate. Many of the tracks contained here draw heavily from the same vein as Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Son Volt, and The Jayhawks. Yet there's enough of Whiskeytown's own creations here to make this disc a worthy effort in its own right.

Strangers Almanac is available from Barnes & Noble.
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Ratings

1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

Copyright © 1998 The Music Box