This debut album showcases fairly traditional bluegrass and string band music not from America’s Deep South but from Canada’s Far North.
The core group members are singer-guitarist JD McCallen, singer-guitarist Ian Smith, singer-mandolinist Ryan West, banjoist Aaron P. Burnie, and fiddle player Kieran Poile.
The quartet are from Yukon which was made famous by the Klondike Gold Rush. This event is the subject of the opening track: Fool’s Gold. Of their home town, McCallen says, “The isolation is a blessing and a curse. It’s such a beautiful place to live and make music.”
The Old ‘98 is an affectionate ode to a broken down bar at the local Whitehorse 98 Hotel and the overall mood of the album is cheerily upbeat even when singing of the passing of time (Snowflakes in the Sun) or the struggle to make ends meet (Waitin’ on a Paycheque).
The least danceable song is ironically entitled Everybody Dance. This was apparently a co-write with JD McCallen’s then two-year-old daughter but it’s one of the slowest tunes on the album.
Another melancholy piece is Wish, told from the point of view of a disillusioned and dying soldier isolated in snow-filled trenches thinking about his old Kentucky home and dreaming of rum or whiskey.
A Drunken Goodnight rounds things off on a brighter note with the morale seeming to be that all’s well with the world providing the drinks keep flowing.
