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Drakkar Sauna - Wars & Tornadoes (2008)

"Drakkar Sauna faithfully sings songs of The Louvin Brothers,” the front cover of “Wars And Tornadoes” declares. That’s the truth. Across the album’s nine songs, Jeff Stolz, Wallace Cochran and company give about as comprehensive a summary of the Louvin Brothers’ mix of faith and personal insecurities as any greatest-hits compilations could. Drakkar Sauna is a two-piece old-time country band. Not Harry Smith — more like Hank Williams, but maybe a little slower. Setup includes chord organ, acoustic guitar, one microphone (and various percussive implements).

Tracks:

01 Tiny Broken Heart

02 The Family Who Prays

03 River of Jordan listen

04 Lorene

05 The Weapon of Prayer

06 When I Stop Dreaming

07 Don’t Laugh

08 Katie Dear

09 Are You Afraid to Die

Musicians:

Jeff Stolz: Drums, Guitar (acoustic), Harmophone, Mandolin, Vocals

Wallace Cochran: Guitar, Vocals.

Featuring: Betse Ellis (violin), Paul Schmidt (bass), Kory Willis (electric guitar and mandolin), Wayne Gottstein (mandolin), Sean McEniry (drums).

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Before recording an album of Delmore Brothers songs, Ira Louvin got a hold of Rabon Delmore's guitar, delicately removed the strings, and washed them in gasoline so that they would live again. Any close harmony singing since will owe a debt to the work of The Louvin Brothers. Ira and Charlie's familiarity and competition, their fraternity, came through in their singing. Their relationship was as much a part of their expression as the harmony itself. Over three albums, Drakkar Sauna has demonstrated their close singing debt to the Louvins, performing with the same intensity of expression; a close, long relation relayed in wailing harmony. Jeff Stolz and Wallace Cochran are cousins, not brothers, and instead of the hills of Mississippi, they come to us from the grassland of Kansas. Recording a set of Louvin songs has been a long held ambition of the duo, and in this album we hear them singing with more and for more than any previous work. Joined with the incredible musicianship of Kansas' finest players, Wars and Tornadoes is the Louvin spirit soaked in gasoline to live again.

Drakkar Sauna faithfully sings songs of The Louvin Brothers,” the front cover of “Wars And Tornadoes” declares. That’s the truth. Across the album’s nine songs, Jeff Stolz, Wallace Cochran and company give about as comprehensive a summary of the Louvin Brothers’ mix of faith and personal insecurities as any greatest-hits compilations could.

The trick to cover albums is finding the balance between reimaginings that lose the source material’s soul and carbon-copy versions so similar that nothing new is gained from another artist’s interpretation. “Wars And Tornadoes” handles this problem quite nicely, often finding the sweet spot, and when the Lawrence-based Drakkar Sauna does err, it is on the side of caution.

In fact, that’s the album’s only major shortcoming –– it plays too safe. Harmonies, tempo and delivery are all the same as the source material, leaving the arrangements as the only place for experimentation. And while this will largely go unnoticed by listeners unfamiliar with the Louvin Brothers, for bluegrass or classic country fans weaned on “The Family Who Prays” or “When I Stop Dreaming,” this will be quite evident.

Still, it’s clear through both song choice and loyalty to the source material that Drakkar Sauna truly loves the Louvin Brothers’ contribution to musical history. While the Louvin Brothers created plenty of dated music that quickly lost relevance, the songs on “Wars And Tornadoes” highlight broader themes such as love, instability and hard times. The abstract nature of these songs gives them a timelessness musicians strive for.

“The Family Who Prays” is just as relevant now as the original and is, at times, eerily prophetic. Elsewhere, “Don’t Laugh” disguises its uncertainty and hesitance to trust behind an upbeat mix of banjo, electric guitar and mandolin. And while the same can be said for many of the songs on “Wars And Tornadoes,” the album’s short run time of less than 30 minutes helps narrowly avoid repetition.

“Wars And Tornadoes” serves as a solid introduction to the Louvin Brothers, as the songs here are careful updates rather than artistic reinterpretations. The album successfully incorporates all the elements that made the band influential without glossing over Drakkar Sauna’s solid musicianship, vocal arrangements and harmonies. It’s a worthy addition for Drakkar Sauna fans or burgeoning country and bluegrass listeners eager to step further into the genre. — Trevan McGee

Anti-folk with timeless twist

by Jesse D Stanek

Drakkar Sauna just might make the perfect music for drinking heavily around a campfire. The two-piece from Lawrence, Kan., uses a multi-instrumental approach to old-timey folk music set to foot-stomping guitar, piano, organ, harmophone and tambourine shoe. Add that to semi-insane lyrics most of us wouldn’t breech on our weirdest days — cannibal metaphysics, the etiquette of dueling, Spanish cinema — and the end result lies somewhere between deconstructed folk music and an Old West saloon circa 1912.

"Really we play this kind of music mainly out of an appreciation for the beautiful harmony of the human voice,” guitarist/vocalist Wallace Cochran said. “We’re big fans of Sam Cooke, The Kinks, The Louvin Brothers obviously, Hazel Dickens, Thin Lizzy, really anyone who harmonizes. [Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Jeff Stolz] and I can harmonize pretty well together and there’s not many things we can do well together so that’s why we do what we do.”

Cochran’s reference to The Louvin Brothers is beyond fitting because the band just released a tribute album of Louvin tunes. The band’s third proper album, finds the duo leaving behind the goofy song titles (“Spear For When The Bear Comes” and “Mongrel of a Halfman Slave Bitch,” for instance) in favor of a trip down memory lane with some songs that clearly served as a major influence on the band. On the earnestly crafted Wars and Tornadoes, songs from a couple of siblings torn apart by alcoholism never sounded so damn toe-tapping.

“We’ve been doing four or five of their songs for a while now,” Cochran said as the boys loaded out from a Cincinnati-area studio. “Once we decided to learn a couple more of their songs we were so close to having a full set that we thought let’s learn a full set. So we did.”

Coming out of Kansas, Drakkar Sauna is in a unique position of having a host of other Americana-folk type bands in its vicinity. Bands like Split Lip Rayfield and The DeWayne Brothers have long made the free state a particularly appetizing place to load up on music influenced by the past, the kinds of songs born of the prairie, bitter feuds, dust bowls and the devil’s whiskey.

“Wichita and Lawrence are both great places to play,” Cochran said. “We’ve got all these great bands and in part that is due to Winfield [String Festival] but even without Winfield, Split Lip is still going to be Split Lip. We first started playing together through Winfield contacts but without all these great Kansas towns to play in we wouldn’t have a thing.”

thereader.com

Original News:

As Americana as Apple Pie

Related:

Louvin Brothers - Close Harmony (Bear Family, 8 CD, Box Set)

Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123