Monday Music: A Review of Chains & Stakes by The Dead South

Bias alert: I love this band. The Dead South started out as a loving parody of bluegrass and made themselves into an earnest, if at times tongue-in-cheek, band making music like nobody else. What kind of band they are is a question with a complex answer. Are they bluegrass? Mostly?

Are they dark murder folk? At times?

Are they a country band? I’d say yes, but that answer would be misleading. The country genre implies the presence of certain tropes which The Dead South don’t employ.

So, what is their sound?

These are four guys with bluegrass sensibilities whose music is a combination of great storytelling, evocative musicality who don’t take themselves so seriously as to avoid writing a song with sexual double entendres ostensibly about bacon.

No, really.

Their latest album, Chains and Stakes – every release of their own music plucks its title from their lyrics, this from “Yours to Keep” – was released at the beginning of February and showcases the band not only as energetic and forthright storytellers but also as instrumentalists in their own right.

The band hails from the woody hills and hollers of – allow me a moment to check my notes, here – uh, Saskatchewan. A four-piece consisting of Colton Crawford (a former thrash metal guitarist) on banjo, Nate Hilts (who once imagined himself a career teaching French) on guitar and lead vocals, Scott Pringle on mandolin and vocals and Danny Kenyon who plays a cello hung about his shoulders with a strap like an electric bass and contributes vocals as well, the band has cultivated a dedicated following.

Chains and Stakes expands upon the immersive storytelling aspect of their previous work. “Son of Abraham” appears to be a prequel of sorts to “Broken Cowboy” from their last album, Sugar and Joy. ¹ “Tiny Wooden Box” is a poignant and hopeful meditation on death and those who have passed before us.

“A Little Devil” is an exploration of the dangers of temptation.

The song that jumped at my most intensely on my first listen was “20 Mile Jump,” a sub-ninety second tale about a guy with a severe drinking problem. I suspect the title is a variation on “Inna Godda Davida,” being a misheard lyric from the song. While the official lyrics contain the line in the chorus “20 mile jump flat on my back,” I’m almost certain that the line being sung is “when I’m out drunk flat on my back,” which also fits the song in context.

Their lyrics are very, very well written. The aforementioned “Yours to Keep” being a prime example. The tune struts like the fool the lyric describes.

The three instrumentals are excellent, the best – because I have to pick one; tomorrow it could be different – is “Clemency,” a heartache of a tune that tells a tale of its own, I imagine about a man who did not receive it.

I cannot recommend Chains and Stakes by The Dead South highly enough,

While not from this record, I’ve would be remiss if I didn’t make a shoutout to my mom and include this:

1. Nate Hilts, in response to a question about “Broken Cowboy’s” subject matter, suggested it was personal. I suspect that the Broken Cowboy was an uncle of his, the cowboy son of Abraham in “Son of Abraham.”