New(ish) Music Review: Delta Rae - "Carry The Fire"

Delta Rae, "Carry The Fire" 4.5/5 Stars

Ladies, gentlemen, and otherwise: I was wrong about Delta Rae.  I was so unbelievably wrong that I honestly don’t know where to begin.  To be fair, the first track I heard was “Morning Comes” in the main music video version, which is done in a traditional college rock style and is thoroughly forgettable, even if the music video is a foray into the delightfully absurd.  The trouble is that it’s actually a good song, but only when divorced from the visual setting.  Eric Hölljes and Elizabeth Hopkins demonstrate their real abilities in a way the video irreparably harms.  But then, at Nick’s suggestion, I went through the rest of their Carry the Fire and fell in love. 

This group of six alternates leading roles seamlessly and plays to their mutual strengths in unique ways.  Particularly, the video for “Bottom of the River” attracts the attention of a social historian (my own background) for its mixture of antebellum slave spiritual musical styles, medieval Japanese kyuubi masks, and modern stomp dance moves.  Unlike the other track, the video here enhances the story-telling.  In this song, Brittany Hölljes demonstrates a roar in her voice fit for a cryogenically preserved white child birthed by Bessie Smith and tutored by Ella Fitzgerald.  She’s that good.  The background chants and keyboard trills add to the mystique she constructs with that primæval growl so rare in today’s music.

They have love songs about hope overcoming pain, the complexities of human relationships, the dichotomies between nostalgia and reality, and the overall cussedness of the world being overcome through hard work.  Throughout, the band’s work is blissfully free from autotuning and other forms of sound manipulation.  Their continually evolving harmonies demonstrate the complexities possible when a talented group of people just want to sing without modern augmentations.  Their style is variable, even between different releases of the same song, so it’s difficult to put them into a category.  Frankly, my initial assessment of “college rock” was unfair.  They deserve better than that.  If I had to put a label on them, one which acknowledges the equal parts creativity, adoption, and adaptation they use in this album, I would have to call it “American Awesome.”  Rating: 4.5/5

– J. Holder Bennett, KMA Music Historian

Tracklist:

1. Holding On To Good

2. Is There Anyone Out There

3. Norning Comes

4. If I Loved You

5. Bottom Of The River

6. Country House

7. Surrounded

8. Dance In The Graveyards

9. Fire

10. Forgive The Children We Once Were

11. Unlike Any Other

12. Hey, Hey, Hey