The Menders – The Devil’s Reel
The Menders; photo provided by artist.
When Forthright Records’ Andrew Oliver and I first talked about making this column a reality, we discussed looking beyond the local music scene which is something I had never really done in my six years of writing about music. I was not sure what that would look like in actual practice but assumed that it would be an “I’ll know it when I see it” kind of opportunity. That chance came sooner than I might have expected when I noticed that The Menders were celebrating the release of their new album this Saturday night in Gastonia and I would be remiss if I did not shout this information from the proverbial rooftops of the Interweb.
For a short backstory, I first met The Menders when they played the original Radio Room – you know, the one without windows – right around the time I first started covering the local music scene. The recorded material I listened to ahead of the show gave a sense of folk-forward garage rock but their live act devolved into an all-out old-school rock & roll performance. The folk that was there at the start of the show was long gone by the closing notes and my wife and I left in awe of what we had just witnessed. Every show of theirs I have seen since has continued that evolution as The Menders have become what I consider to be one of the best throwback rock & roll acts in the region.
This brings me to a long-awaited moment with the release of The Devil’s Reel, an album four years in the making. Menders’ guitarist (and now personal friend) Wes Forbus describes the process as one filled with plenty of starts, stops, rewrites, and reinventions before producer Matt Schwartz stepped in and “kicked our ass… and made all the difference in this record”. Bringing in an outside voice that was not wholly invested in the writing of the album brought a fresh opinion to the room and the result is The Menders’ strongest album to date.
The opening track, “Come On In” starts with some folky acoustic guitar notes reminiscent of The Menders of the past before co-lead singer Jonny Boswell’s gravelly growl sets an entirely different tone to things. Lead singing duties are shared by Boswell and Jesse Watson but, for the first time, Boswell takes the larger share of the carries on this album. The result is a louder, more club-you-over-the-head type of sound as The Menders make no bones about the fact that they are first and foremost a rock & roll band.
This is not to take anything away from Watson’s contributions, of course, as his softer, more harmonic vocals still serve up some of the albums’ brightest, yet darkest, moments. The uncrowned king of the stalker/murder ballad, “A Room For Two” carries such an upbeat tone that lines like “I found a place made just for you/By the creek covered up in roots/I told you not to go out without me” force you take pause and wonder just what in the hell is happening here. Once he has your attention, the detailed tale of murder/suicide is the Cliff Note’s version of a horror story that you cannot help but tap your feet to.
I should note that “A Room For Two” is, in my opinion, one-half of the brightest part of the album as it follows “Belong to Me” and makes a pairing that perfectly captures everything that I love about The Menders. “Belong to Me” starts with a bass line that would fit anywhere on a Clutch album before giving way to driving guitar and Boswell’s grit and howl for a track reminiscent of the best the 1970’s ever had to offer. Having “Room For Two” follow this with a bright and cheery murder scene is pure genius and perfectly Menders.
Wes tells me that a lot of this album is inspired, or maybe more accurately, a reaction to these strange, dark times that we are living in and that definitely bleeds through in the final product. Angst, frustration, and fear, are tempered with a certain amount of optimism that makes this a poignant but still fun album to consume. Personally, I am on my third listen at the time of this writing and do not even feel like I have begun to scratch the surface of what this record has to offer.
For those in or within striking distance of Gastonia, North Carolina, The Menders’ official album release party is at Freemans Pub Saturday evening. It is a fitting host as Freemans Pub was the place that every member of The Menders happened to first meet, all on different occasions and circumstances. Attendees can look forward to not only an electric live performance but also some “goodies” like a limited CD release, posters, and a few other sleeve-residing tricks I am not at liberty to discuss in public. For the rest of us, The Devil’s Reel goes live on all platforms on Friday, “even the ones I didn’t know about,” Wes tells me. The album is also available on vinyl which you can preorder on Bandcamp now.
No matter where you are, what you are doing, or whether or not you have access to Gastonia on a Saturday night, do yourself a favor and find a way to add The Menders to your listening rotation. “We want to mend souls,” Wes told me when I first interviewed him six years ago as he explained the band’s name. In these odd times, a lot of souls could use some mending and all I am saying is some fresh new music certainly could not hurt.
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