If Then Not When (Chemikal Underground,2011)
Debut album from this band featuring various Touch & Go alumni. Hailing from Louisville KY, King’s Daughters & Sons feature members of Rachel’s, Shipping News, The For Carnation and Shannon Wright. The music on the album deals mostly with ghost stories, murder ballads and grimoires: dark narratives that recall Nick Cave and the work of Louisville luminaries Slint.
Those sticking around are in for a treat, as If Then Not When reaches the quality you’d expect of a November Chemikal Underground release: wintry, beautiful… basically the Delgados on an iced-over dirt trail. Michael Heineman and Rachel Grimes have all the harmonies their frontiersman music demands, and when the guitar/bass/drums climax in time with them, the results are as sweetly morose as you could hope for. ‘Dead Letter Office’ tells the story behind the band’s name; a sludgey hymn to the dirty south that feels like Hope of the States when they still had sackcloth promos. “Such a lonely ride in the saddle out of town,” howls Heineman, his hoarse roar propelled by a tortured rock-out. Grimes shows off her range on ‘Arc of the Absentees’ where she impersonates 25 per cent of the Corrs, cooing gently in a Gaelic accent ”Try and recall a time when we all held a steady course / Before we were brightful and indifferent”. When both singers come together for the swirling ‘Anniversary’, the atmosphere jumps up ten places. A tale of botched wedding, exploding whiskey stills and Billy Lyons, a patsy in a small town assault, it features the same eerie acoustics as Isobel Campbell’s Gentle Waves; all carousing choruses and delicious seasickness. Heineman cleverly twists it into a kidnapper’s jingle by adding the line ”In the kitchen, whiskey-drunk / I pray to someone else’s god that you’ll keep quiet…”.
