Independent (label)
01 January 2021 (released)
24 March 2021
Before the days of the stadium tour and the pop-crossover, country music's house of worship was the local honky-tonk. Bud-fuelled ragers were scored by an overworked house band that played insanely long sets, seven nights a week. These gruelling crucibles would produce some of country music's hottest talent cause if you play that often for that long, you just have to get good. Lightning chicken pickers, freight train drummers and vocals of steel that croon out hard livin' tunes.
Moncton's The Divorcees embody the ethos of the old honky-tonk. The group's 16-year tenure has taken them back and forth across Canada and earned them several East Coast Music Association and Music New Brunswick awards for their traditional Americana-tinged country. The band is air-tight, playing their twang with just the right sheen of spotlight. Vocalists Alex Madsen and Jason Heywood sing their odes to the town's characters making their way through life, occasionally breaking with their genre's simple nature to contemplate life beyond the towing capacity of their truck and the fidelity of their wife. Drop of Blood is a country album through and through but manages to sidestep many of the tropes that might scare off the uninitiated.
The pristine musicianship of the band is on display throughout the album. 'Caledonia Mountain' provides a shimmering acoustic picking instrumental to get things started on the right foot. The pedal steel's usual sorrowful swell is flipped to score a sunny day on the open road. 'Dying Breed' is the offspring of Kenny Rogers 'The Gambler' telling the tale of a gambling drifter to an ambling beat. 'Losing Hand' is a classic two-step number. Grab your gal and get on the floor. 'Drinkin' in the Afternoon' hits that outlaw country beat finding its place somewhere between Steve Earle and Hank III. A railroad shuffle drives 'Making the Scene' for a catchy whisky-drinkin' anthem.
The band finds its way to deeper territory later on in the album. 'The Other Side of the Blue' contemplates the great beyond with great songwriting backing pensive lyrics about facing the next chapter after this life. “As I pull back the curtain/As I look beyond the pale/Everything's still uncertain/What lays behind the veil/One thing is for certain/I'll be searching for you/ We'll be together again/On the other side of the blue”. 'Too Old to Die Young' hits spaghetti western chords with languishing vocals on this tune of a cowboy facing down his later days. Never died in glorious battle, left to slowly live out the rest of his days. The title track closes the album out with more of that outlaw spirit taking stock of all the hardships that got them from there to here.
The Divorcees are a finely-tuned machine, turning out pitch-perfect honky-tonk country with a rebel spirit. Side A hits all the right spots with dancehall-ready swingers but the second half delivers the album's most affecting material. Elements of spaghetti western and outlaw country give Side B a depth beyond most honky tonk records.