A Derby Spiritual

Description

A relisten to A Derby Spiritual, the first album by Drunk released in 1996, reveals a record more charming, softer, and more colorful than its reputation as a stoic 90s slowcore album would suggest. One might even notice that Rick Alverson's voice has a previously unsuspected melancholic Tom Petty-like intonation. The Richmond band certainly sounds cautious, a bit raspy, and stripped-down. But the decades have given this melancholic record a soft amber glow. Tracks like “Germany Skies”, “Gideon's Trumpet”, and “Gizmo” could fit perfectly into the current indie-country wave. Alverson's lyrics oscillate between the hopeful nihilism of David Berman, another Virginia singer-songwriter and poet from the same era, and the deep post-beat minimalism of Robert Creeley. It was time to dust off this record, and there is no better occasion for that than the 30th anniversary of Jagjaguwar. A Derby Spiritual, the second album released on the label, will therefore be available on vinyl for the very first time.