Here’s another remote working pandemic project for you. This isn’t a high profile, multi-screen Zoom video collaboration; Los Brujos is a much more intimate and personal thing involving (mainly) Chuck Melchin of Bean Pickers Union and Michael Spaly of Green Monroe. The two obviously have a chemistry and have collaborated on projects over the last decade. The difference with this one is that everything has been done in their respective home studios in Michigan and New Hampshire and stitched together by producer Dave Westner in Massachusetts.
The “Alchemy” EP is five songs featuring mainly string band arrangements and some gorgeous four-part harmonies, played with great subtlety and style. What it definitely isn’t is a happy, cheerful listening experience, but I’m partial to a bit of melancholy in my music and it’s appropriate for the times we find ourselves in at the moment.
The atmospheric opener “Reckoning” features some nice harmonies to contrast with the brooding, haunted feel of the tale of a place filled with ghosts, while the gentle country feel of “Bronco” (the car, not the horse) typifies the EP with its story of a relationship break-up finalised by the ex-partner packing her belongings into a Bronco.
“Everything I Can” feels like a Leadon-era Eagles song with its gentle pace and banjo and fiddle fills, telling the story of a break-up caused by a desire to break out of stifling surroundings; it’s an apology delivered while looking in the rear-view mirror. “High Times” is the only question mark for me; it continues the previous track’s theme of the small-town outsider and the early part of the song features some tight four-part harmonies which, towards the end, become a bit too processed and psychedelic for my taste.
And the final song, “Bitter Blue”, is back to slow, laid-back country rock telling the story of the man compelled to keep making the same relationship mistakes. There you go; as Jim Steinman might have said, four out of five ain’t bad.
Five beautifully-crafted songs with lovely harmonies and some delightfully understated playing; I’ll take that any time.
“Alchemy” is released in the UK on Friday November 6th on Inseam Records.
