WHISKEYTOWN : FAITHLESS STREET

WHISKEYTOWN : FAITHLESS STREET

Midway Park
Drank Like A River
Too Drunk To Dream
Tennessee Square
What May Seem Like Love
Faithless Street
Mining Town
If He Can't Have You
Black Arrow, Bleeding Heart
Matrimony
Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight
Desperate Ain't Lonely
Hard Luck Story
Top Dollar
Lo-Fi Tennessee Mountain (For Kathy Poindexter)
Revenge
Empty Baseball Park
Here's To The Rest Of The World
16 Days
Yesterday's News
Factory Girl

Label : Outpost Recordings

Release Date : 1995 / 1998 (Re-issue)

Length : 67:21

Review (AllMusic) : Faithless Street serves as an interesting document in the history of alt-country upstarts Whiskeytown, showing 20-year-old bandleader and chief songwriter Ryan Adams' headfirst leap from member of a high-school punk band into an emotionally charged, alcohol-fueled, traditional-minded country singer. The majority of the album was recorded in the summer of 1995 near Whiskeytown's hometown of Raleigh by Chris Stamey (of the dB's) and overflows with beer bottle, front porch, sun-drenched country anguish. Of the recording, Adams would later recall: "All I remember is what we had to drink and Skillet and Ray Duffy's preoccupation with fireworks... the Roman candles and black cats sounded a lot like I'd hope we'd one day sound -- pretty little things all set on fire waiting to get destroyed." Looking back on this statement, the band's history of lineup changes and well-documented onstage fights seems to fit into Adams' five-year plan perfectly. The music itself is often sparse and gritty, brutally honest, and quite beautiful, especially in the introspective "If He Can't Have You," "Desperate Ain't Lonely," and the achingly gorgeous "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight." For all of the attention surrounding Adams' songwriting and Gram Parsons-like self-destructive bluster, one of the album's highlights comes from violinist and vocalist Caitlin Cary's "Matrimony," sung with a fierce independence that is a far cry from Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man," although with a similar heartfelt enthusiasm. Regarding his songwriting in the Faithless Street era, the lead singer later confided: "In retrospect, I knew that was the last optimism I was gonna have for a long time," which sounds implausible regarding most of the album's subject matter, but later proved to be true. Overall, the album (re-released in 1998 by Outpost Recordings with several bonus tracks) stands as a terrific recording on its own, and also foreshadows many of the forthcoming troubles and achievements in the arc of the band's life span.

Review (Wikipedia) : Faithless Street, released on Mood Food Records in 1995, established the band as one of the genre's leaders, thanks to glowing reviews in publications such as No Depression, and helped the band score a major-label record deal with the Geffen Records imprint Outpost. Faithless was re-released on the imprint in 1998 with nearly a dozen bonus tracks from the era. Among the bonus tracks were previously unreleased tracks and tracks that had been released on earlier albums and EPs, including Strangers Almanac and Rural Free Delivery. One track, "Oklahoma," was removed. Adams claimed that the reason for the re-release was the muddy sound of the original version and his distaste for "Oklahoma," which was added to the album despite his objections.

Review (Sputnik Music) : As a relative unknown in the mid 90's alternative country realm, Whiskeytown specialized in crafting melodically memorable tunes that owed just as much to traditional classic rock song structures as they did customary country music instrumentation. The band never went for the gut quite like Uncle Tupelo did, but frontman Ryan Adams was a leader of great artistic depth whose soulful, smoky vocals provided a wonderful lead element to his band's rustic but tenacious instrumental attack. This comes as a bit of a surprise considering Adams' background as a punk rock singer prior to forming Whiskeytown, but the songs on display here show an artist operating right within his creative wheelhouse. Taking cues from the likes of Gram Parsons, Jay Farrar, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Steve Earle, Adams is a compelling vocalist in his own right. He rarely reaches back in aggressive fashion, but prefers to take a look at the middle road by singing with subtle force and aching sincerity. Faithless Street is a beautiful record that achieves its stature by effectively jumping between straight ahead roadhouse rockers and acoustic driven ballads, most of which are speckled with added pedal steel guitar, violin, banjo, and electric guitar crunch. The effort is rarely clumsy despite the fact that this sort of music is usually more concerned with communicating the emotional centers of its performers and not the technical proficiency of their playing styles. Much like any rock record that looks to add a country music dimension to its music, success lies in the sincerity of the performances and locking in on the added sense of anguish that comes with incorporating traditional country music instrumentation. Whiskeytown succeeds in that effort and sound completely natural doing it on Faithless Street. Although never unhinging into electric fury (except perhaps on the explosive "Revenge") like Uncle Tupelo was so prone to doing, Whiskeytown takes many a cue from their groundbreaking counterparts. Songs like "Midway Park" and "If He Can't Have You" maintain a muscular drive to them but without sacrificing Adams' mournful vocal stylings, clean guitar melodies, and the atmospheric effects of accompanying pedal steel guitar and banjo. Whiskeytown certainly took more notice of Uncle Tupelo's Anoydne album as opposed to their more furious No Depression record when crafting this plaintive but powerful set. "Black Arrow, Bleeding Heart," Tennessee Square," and "Desperate Ain't Lonely" sound like they could have been lifted straight off of Anodyne with their stark acoustic leads and anguished pedal steel contributions. Whiskeytown adds a secret weapon in the vocal harmonies of Caitlin Cary, whose delicate but coarse voice adds a perfect counterpoint to Adams' whiskey drenched vocal leads. Cary gets her own chance to shine on the traditionally minded "Matrimony," where she gracefully explores the duality of marriage and the lonesomeness that comes from accepting the possibility of never finding the right counterpart to walk with through life. The age old argument about what constitutes a great record usually surrounds opting for creation of a diverse, unpredictable set or aiming for thematic coherence throughout the entirety of an album. Faithless Street certainly opts for the latter lyrically and musically, but the flow and cadence of the album is so consistently excellent that it's hard to fault the band for choosing that route. The best tracks on the album are usually a showcase for Adams' charismatic vocal talents and the ability of the band to be simultaneously stark and uplifting, but there are occasional tracks where the whole band unleashes with youthful exuberance. Cuts like "Drank Like a River," What May Seem Like Love," "Top Dollar," and "Hard Luck Story" show the more upbeat, unadulterated side of the band with their quick tempos, soaring pedal steel melodies, and added electric guitar crunch. The stunner of the album is the striking "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart," the only track that truly transcends its blunt atmosphere thanks to an eventual vocal climax from Adams. The track would have worked well enough with its jogging rhythms and staccato guitar breakdowns, but Adams puts a stamp on the matter with a powerful, crooning vocal as the song reaches its apex. The song perfectly encapsulates what the band is all about; emotive craftsmanship meeting gritty dynamics. Whiskeytown could have broken through with any sort of semblance of support from rock or country radio, but this sort of music was always destined to learn toward the underground. It's too sparse and forlorn sounding for traditional radio standards, but there's enough bounce and energy to appeal to any fan of traditional country music or even classic rock. Faithless Street is a fun record that will provide both release for its whiskey induced high energy and a mindful companion for its excursions into the realities of a broken heart. Those themes are the bread and butter for this brand of country infused rock music, but when executed with sincerity, its a brand of music that will transcend the cliches that 90% of similar acts so clumsily endorse. Faithless Street is just one of those records you'll look to in order to grind through the hard times, and sometimes that's all you need.

Review (Tiny Mix Tapes) : "In retrospect, I knew that was the last optimism I was gonna have for a long time." - Ryan Adams The cliché about Ryan Adams is that he always knows exactly what he's doing. That every pratfall and every "fuck you" and every bit of record company bating is just a calibrated put-on. Indeed, his five years in Whiskeytown were years well-spent; he was an insufferable little bitch right from the get-go (the band only produced three proper albums, but the lineup changes were in the teens), and by the time it all crumbled down around him, he was Paul Westerberg, he was Gram Parsons. A guy who could melt your heart with two chords and an "ooh-la-la" before belting you one in the teeth and stealing your french fries or your girlfriend. But if Adams always had one hand on the wheel, it doesn't show on Faithless Street, Whiskeytown's 1995 debut. He sounds terrified; his voice flows against his own songwriting, which is achingly confident. On "Midway Park," a gorgeous double helix of pedal steel arpeggios continually builds and is shattered by the howling, slobbering chorus: "We'll lie/ We'll lie/ Don't tell the truth/ Just lie." On the doleful title track, Adams admits, "I started this damn country band/ 'Cause punk rock is too hard to sing." Faithless Street was reissued by Outpost in 1998, refurbished and expanded nearly twofold. Three of the nine bonus tracks -- "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight," "16 Days," and "Yesterday's News" -- are copped from the Stranger's Almanac album, but they sound better here, especially the classic "Excuse Me" (ravaged on Almanac as a duet with Alejandro Escovedo). The real gem, though, is "Desperate Ain't Lonely," on which Adams shares vocals with violinist Caitlin Cary. There's a definite tension there that isn't sexual (not to my knowledge, anyway) or the result of creative differences (she stuck it out until the very end). It's just their voices. He sounds wrecked, she sounds strong. She's moving on, he's not. And some might say he never did.