Volebeats: Country Favorites

If you didn’t know differently, you’d think this latest release from the Detroit alt.country act Volebeats was simply an homage to the tradition of the sorrow-drenched, AM radio days of country music and the honky tonk days of the Motor City. But you’d only be half right.

What makes Country Favorites astounding and a truly enjoyable record is that while many of these tunes are covers, they aren’t renditions of those country and honky tonk favorites. Rather, you’ll find the likes of ABBA, Slayer, and Funkadelic covered here in most surprising and rewarding ways.

The Volebeats have long been an influential, if unheralded, alt.country outfit, practicing the “Cosmic American Music” made popular by hero Gram Parsons for over a decade. Their fans include the cranky misfit Ryan Adams and country singer Laura Cantrell, who covered the band on her debut record. They’ll have a new record of originals out later this year, but in the meantime have offered up this mix of covers and original hard-to-find rarities. While such a record would likely be considered an act of ego stroking for someone like, I dunno, the aforementioned Mr. Adams, it’s anything but in the hands of singer Jeff Oakes, guitarist Matthew Smith, and the rest of the band.

Opening tracks “I Had to Tell You” (a 13th Floor Elevators cover) and “One I Love” (an original) highlight the mellow harmonies and reverb-heavy soundscapes that have come to typify the band. “One I Love”, in fact, can stand toe-to-toe with the best of the band’s catalogue; it’s a dark, almost psychedelic, western pop song that reminds of Murmur-era R.E.M.

The cover song fun begins on the third track, an oddly effective rendition of ABBA’s “Knowing Me Knowing You”. In the hands of the Volebeats, it sounds like it could have come directly from late-night, 1970s country radio. Countrified versions of pop songs have been attempted by enough bands that the mere mention of the concept is rightly met with skepticism. Yet, here the songs manage to sound organic — as if this were the way they were supposed to be played all along. They mesh perfectly with additional Volebeat originals like “Hold On” and “Too Much Love” before giving way to more covers. Slayer’s “Die by the Sword”, for instance, sounds like the soundtrack to a Clint Eastwood western in the group’s capable hands, and the trippy guitar work on Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” is all that cosmic country rock should be.

The Volebeats are able to pull all this off, of course, because they are masters of their craft. Their expertly-executed, inspired brand of country music both evokes and breaks away from the genre’s “favorites”. They are capable of sounding like Hank Williams and Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys in the same chorus line. They don’t do anything overly experimental and they don’t do anything much different than when they started a decade ago. But there’s something to be said for knowing your sound and sticking to it. Now if some of that would just rub off on their fan Adams….