Deadstring Brothers
Silver Mountain

DEADSTRING BROTHERS, Silver Mountain

If you love the boozy sound of the Rolling Stones, the kind that's found on albums like "Sticky Fingers" or "Exile", you won't have trouble appreciating the sound of the Deadstring Brothers, as if nothing has changed since the early '70s.
All the ingredients are there: guitars, piano, vocals, and above all, very convincing tracks meant to be played while covering miles on the road. They come from - surprise - the Detroit area, which is certainly not the main cradle for this type of sound: yet they are one of those small great gems that only emerge from the US music scene and for which it's worth sifting through a lot of conventional and mainstream sand.

The group is based on two lead vocals, the female voice of Masha and that of Kurt Marschke, who also handles guitars and string instruments in general. The other members are Spencer Cullum, guitars and lap steel, Jeff Cullum, bass, Travis Harret, drums, Pat Kenneally, piano and organ.

This "Silver Mountain" released in 2007 follows their very first and still uncertain eponymous album of 2005 and the brilliant "Starving Winter Report " from the following year and is certainly the band's most accomplished work with a high-quality standard featuring the rhythmic "Ain't No Hidin' Love", the lovely "If You Want Me To", the infectious slide in "Rollin' Blues" and the swaying "Slow Down". Obviously, titles don't say much, but their music will tell you a lot when you give it the chance: if this album had come from the throat of Mick Jagger and the fingers of Keith Richards, we'd probably be shouting a miracle.

Certainly, having a compass that so brazenly points north in the Stones direction can only be considered a limitation, and it's therefore reasonable to wait and see what musical direction they will take—whether they will remain in this orbit, inevitably fading into less original copies, or if they will manage to grow further within that rich tradition offered by American music. But these are musings made before pressing play, or after taking the disc out... long after.