Cabin Creek
Goodbye Home
Reviewed by: Jane Roser
Last year when I interviewed Old Crow Medicine Show’s Critter Fuqua we spoke fondly of our favorite Virginia haunts (“good ‘ol Kings Dominion!”) and Virginia’s rich history of old-time mountain and bluegrass music, with deep roots from the Blue Ridge through the Appalachian Mountains, this is (as the moniker for a new museum in Bristol would confirm) the birthplace of country music.
Fredericksburg, Virginia’s Cabin Creek are keeping the old traditions alive taking new, original songs and pairing them with old-timey, foot stomping tunes and somber dirges.
Their new six track EP, Goodbye Home, was recorded, mixed and mastered at Recording Arts in Fairfax and Bias Studios in Springfield and is a welcome follow-up to their 2014 debut album Saturday 6 (named by The Free-Lance Star as one of the Best Albums of 2014). Cabin Creek is comprised of David Hall (lead vocals, banjo, guitar, mandolin), Travis Ferrell (guitar, harmonica), Blayne Laures (drums, piano) and Erik Dzik (bass).
“Hoping and Wishing” is the stand-out track and really showcases Hall’s unique, whiskey-laden vocals and expert banjo fingerpicking that would make Earl Scruggs dance a jig.
The album’s songs deal mostly with themes of longing, loss and loneliness, and although the tone is somber, the delivery is anything but a downer. “Yesterday’s Waltz” is a lovely, well…waltz, which tells the tale of a love who left and takes up with another. The man’s heartbreak and struggle just to get through the day is very relateable: “They say that time’s just a figure, but it’s only another yesterday.”
Goodbye Home is keeping Virginia’s musical heritage alive, well and kicking ass.
Rating: Bad-Ass
