Reviews:: $100 Forest of Tears

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I’m not sure why more people aren’t smitten with the grim tales $100 writes. Honestly, if you sit down and soak in Simone Schmidt's gruff voice and embrace her penchant for narratives full of pain and suffering that are balanced by Ian Russell’s comfortable country arrangements, I find it baffling you could ignore Forest of Tears.

One listen to Stew Crookes’ pedal steel and the beautiful melancholy of Nothing's Alright will warm the heart of any true country fan and the slow meandering sounds of Paris is Burning shows how effortlessly the band can pen a heartbreaking ballad, but $100 is far from a one-note effort.

The powerful debut is a terrific example of a country band willing to fill their songs with the grit and grime of Toronto and emotions and scenarios unfamiliar to most country track protagonists. Thanks to a guiding hand from noise aficionado Rick White, the live on the floor recordings transform Schmidt’s twang into something more adventurous. Whether it’s the drone that dominates Tirade of a Shitty Mom or the chaos that slowly takes over the title track, the recording is infused with an energy you don’t find in country efforts. Instead of stomping a foot through the floor, you find your self soaking in the hazy psychedelics and straining to hear every note trapped in cloud.

But to be honest, it’s when the band sneaks in the heartache and pain of today’s world into the most classic sounds that the effort really sizzles. Opening with the powerful Careless Love, Schmidt transports you inside the mind of a women bored by her lover, his futile touch and wandering eye, but the words are cradled by a fairly traditional arrangement.

No Great Leap is a traditional tear-in-your-beer track that could have been written twenty years ago. Schmidt’s voice draws you in and the bended notes provide the support usually left for bar stools and supportive sentiments from the man serving the drinks, but when you really listen you get hit with a more tangible impact. The depressing recant of a women traveling the same subway line, year after year, fighting the depression and urge to jump (No Great Leap), and proves that even when the band pays tribute to classic sounds, they are never indebted to them.

Labels: Best-of '08, Canada, Music, polaris