DEAN STATION consist of a married couple - self-taught mandolinist and guitar player Levi and collaborator-now-wife Amanda, along with drummer Charlie O’Neal and bassist Doug DeForest. Together, they are in hot and passionate pursuit of the halcyon space shared by a surreal blend of influences.
The search is on. Acoustic guitars slip and slide along atonal pathways, as the vocals siren out a melancholy tinted melody. Female harmonies gently soothe the mandolin harmonics as the cymbal crashes gently mark out the downbeat tom-tom tempo all the way to the song’s whispered fade-out.
The gentle clank of ‘Go-Ahead’ swells with Amanda Dean’s vocal and poetic beauty as she belts out the verses to this highly-strung song. Unconventional in pitch, the melody-to-die-for shines clear.
There’s a more conventional country sound in songs like ‘Desire’ and ‘Flat-Footin’ Girl’, with husband Levi Dean’s vocal slurring out regretful tales of river crossings and unattainable women that seem drenched with the heart’s desire.
But it’s the harmony rich places where both voices operate that genres are best blurred during this eccentric and instantly endearing take on Americana. ‘Raising The Root’ clings more resolutely than you’d expect to the straight-up or alt-country sound, but other elements combine to bend the overall tunes gorgeously out of shape. The music delves far beyond 4/4 major chord composition, as in the ragtime-sublime sepia tones of ‘Say Again’, and it keeps your interest heightened even when the music drifts and melts. The subtle shifts in tempo also shift your focus, making the listening experience all the more absorbing as the record progresses.
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The bizarre half-assed blues of ‘Bad-Bad Dog’ has the same wild bluegrass streak and swings perilously close to as well as far away from the twelve bar core like frantic folk. The music is consistently strong, right through to the end. The sustained and soulful ‘May Day In Court’ provides a heady and dramatic conclusion to what is a wonderfully introverted record that’s both filled with and made up of the same dizzying obsessions.
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