[.ca] Springtime

From Amazon.com:
Just another slice of perfection from Catherine Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean, who have interwoven howling hill-country, high-lonesome vocals like a pair of moonshiner's daughters. If you shiver over old-time country harmonizing, then stop the train and get off. It doesn't get any better. Walking in the same dusty footsteps as the Carter Family and the Louvin Brothers, Irwin and Bean spin their briskly picked tales of sin and salvation over sparse acoustic accompaniment. Irwin supplies most of the lead vocals with a shaking, leathery voice that's seen plenty of wear and tear on hard-lived anthems like "Picture in My Mind" and "Scamp"--"The fall don't hurt you / It's when you land"--while Bean's voice is as sweet and smooth as syrup on a waffle as she gently coos the tender ballad "Binding Twine." Purists may quibble, but this is country music like Nashville hasn't made in decades. While the industry continues to churn out commercial swill, it's the fringe elements like Freakwater, Edith Frost, and Tarnation that actually carry a vital flame. --John Chandler

There's much to lament in Freakwater's lonesome world, and you're simply riveted while they tell you all about it. Covering such light subjects as heaven, death, God, and demons, the aching harmonies of Catherine Ann Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean call to mind icons like the Carter Family while exploring the darkest of themes. Their marriage of traditional melodies with modern caustic lyrics works to perfection. On Springtime, there seems to be the slightest trace of hope mixed in with the despair, but while the rougher edges are sanded down, they're never polished. --Marc Greilsamer

REAL music for all the Lilith children:
In an age where Jewel and Sarah McLachlan are hailed as Lilith Queens and phonies like Garth Brooks have ruined country music, it's no surprise that Freakwater are virtually unknown. The songs which comprise SPRINGTIME sound like a letter to Nashville saying, "This is how it ought to be done." Real, raw, melodic, heartfelt. Even if you don't like "country music" (and I don't), please give this album a chance. Memo to Sarah McL: PLEASE invite Freakwater to next year's Lilith.

Faulkner's Favorite Country Band:
If William Faulkner had a favorite country band (and it wasn't the Carter Family), it might well be Freakwater. They conjure up a universe of their own, where Mohammed Ali's fight for respect ("Louisville Lip") is no less an appropriate subject for minor key mountain laments than drunkeness, lonliness, and poverty. The vocal harmonies have just the right rawness to them, a keening, slightly warbling sound that pierces your brain as well as your heart, and the simple instrumentation is expert. Be prepared for friends and family to think you're nuts if they hear it come out of your speakers, but buy it and play it on your headphones if you have to. There is something unique, real and American about this music.

• Picture in My Mind
• Louisville Lip
• Twisted Wire
• Washed in the Blood
• Binding Twine
• One Big Union
• Harlan
• Jesus Year
• Scamp
• Lorraine
• Slowride
• Heaven
• Flat Hand