Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
We have been conditioned to believe that allowing weeds to grow is the product of an unproductive mind, that they destroy the love and attention bestowed on the colourful and popular plants; and by nature’s fancy, are to be chopped down with a vengeance that is akin to a biblical gesture of deliverance.
Weeds plays more than a part in the world, weeds are the first things we notice when the world insists it is too perfect for anything other than flawless; that the wild and uncontrollable, that the eager and hardy, those that withstand storms with greater ferocity deep in their stems must give way to fragile and dull, and often overhyped, flowers in the pristine soil.
Jeb Barry understands perfection, but as he takes the striding bliss that is The Pawn Shop Saints through the prolific sense of Americana that gazes with thrilled content in the new album Weeds, what the listener comes to realise is that in the darker worlds that often encourage the weeds to thrive are exactly what we need to see the simple and the plain for what it is, beauty uncontained and unable to be stopped by human hands.
Pain and suffering go hand in hand with storms and survival, and from that expansion and growth, and it is with huge respect to Jeb Barry that the album is one of glorious precision, of striving for a new groove without abandoning what has given the audience a sense of adoration.
Americana but embracing the Folk, a glimpse perhaps of the early solo work that emboldened Paul Simon, the gift that forever gives in the full empathy driven by Steve Earle if he grinned at a crowd’s silent awe if he picked up the legacy of the acoustic guitar and spoke gently of personal loss in a tone of the forever wanderer.
This is a given when the understanding of the tribute shown to the late and much-loved John Prine in the recording, and as tracks such as Southern Drawl In Heaven, Chelsea Off My Mind, the express desire of empathy in Generation Lockdown and The Covic Unit, Preacher, and the stunning finale of All Girls Break Hearts all capture the essence of the people who inspired such celebrated lament, so The Pawn Star Saints set a standard for the next generation…and one that is exciting, undaunted, and full of musical muster.
The Pawn Shop Saints release Weeds on July 21st via Dolly Rocker Records.
Ian D. Hall