Big Ditch Road : News & Press
Big Ditch Road has been working in the Terrarium Studios in NE Minneapolis and is preparing to release an EP only 9 months after 2005’s critically acclaimed “Suicide Note Reader’s Companion”. Fueled by a spring filled with touring, the band is sounding tighter than they ever have been. While specifics regarding the new record have been sketchy, initial reports suggest the EP is “loud”. |
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Big Ditch Road in Amplifier!
If you’re looking for the feel good hit of the season, Big Ditch Road’s sophomore album is most assuredly not it. The album’s title, “Suicide Note Reader’s Companion,” is a fairly honest evocation of the grim lyrical explorations found within its downcast Son Volt/Jayhawks-tinged soundtrack. The album is essentially a no-holds-barred journal of frontman Darin Wald’s major battle with depression and his susequent commitment to deal with everything from his fagile emotional state to the near dissolution of his band (only pedal steel player Brian O’Neil remains from “Ring,” BDR’s first album). The spritely alt-country of the debut is supplanted by a rootsier, more distorted Tweedy/Farrar viewpoint, perhaps a sonic translation of the interference that was clouding Wald’s personal and professional judgement. There are harrowing moments at every turn, from the dusty stage-setting opener “Seven Hours” (“Took a vacation/to the state hospital”) to the weary acoustic heartbreak of “Just In Case,” during which Wald ponders possible long-term care(“What would you say just in case I have to stay?”). There are dim cracks of light in this interior travelogue, the most impotrtant one being the very existence of the album as proof that he came through this long, dark tea time of the soul relatively intact. “Suicide Note Reader’s Companion” is no easy listen, but the best music rarely is. |
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