Fort Defiance
Worry Has No Home
Reviewed by: Jane Roser
I’m a sucker for story songs. They hook you from the beginning and touch you on an emotional level, whether their theme is murder, mayhem, despair, broken hearts, lost loves or wild adventure.
Nashville based indie-folk trio Fort Defiance has included one of the most epic story songs I’ve heard in years on their debut album Worry Has No Home. “Momma, I’m Fine” is an old-timey/harmonica-driven catchy tune that tells the story of a traveller who stumbles into a small town and happens upon the sheriff’s wife and her no-good lover. After attacking the traveller, the cheating scoundrel falls on his own knife and the innocent man is framed for murder. The heart-wrenching clincher comes in the chorus when the imprisoned man writes 48 letters to his mother, telling her he’s alright and has the warden mail her one a month, even
long after he is unjustly hung. If this song doesn’t tug at your heart, then nothing will.
Worry Has No Home weaves beautifully written ballads with toe-tapping tunes and great harmonies into nine tracks that anyone with an appreciation of artists such as Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan or The Civil Wars should immediately add to their music library. Fort Defiance is Jordan Eastman (vocals, guitar, harmonica, bass, banjo, percussion and bells), Laurel Lane (vocals, banjo and ukulele) and Dave Martin (drums and washboard). The band was originally born when Eastman and Lane were touring
as solo performers and recruited long-time friend Martin to start playing live shows together as a full band.
Lane sings lead vocals on another track that I really loved entitled “Call Off The Bets”, a cheeky ballad that reminds us ladies that we do indeed know what we’re getting into when we get involved with men who tell us they’re “a rambler”, but “honey, I knew.” Worry Has No Home ends with the haunting ballad “Trouble On A Troubled Mind” and these poetic lyrics: “…now the honest fall a victim to the truth within the lies, were there flashes of a signal that I failed to recognize? I guess there’s no use in wondering if you’re only wondering why.”
With themes of fears and worries, loneliness and redemption, Worry Has No Home is compelling, exciting and breathtakingly seductive.
Rating: Bad-Ass
