The Dead South share a string-laced take on Will The Circle Be Unbroken, with banjo and mandolin twined around sparse cello and forlorn baritone vocals. The new cover is found on ‘Easy Listening for Jerks Part 1,’ half of a forthcoming double EP set that travels from nitty gritty Nashville to west coast weird and back again, putting The Dead South’s renegade acoustic approach to classics of two very different sorts.
The Dead South have previewed the forthcoming companion project with material from both EPs, including People Are Strange complete with banjo-UFO earthling abduction video, and the stark and desperate rendition of You Are My Sunshine.
Rich with quality finger picking and replete with harmonies, ‘Easy Listening for Jerks’ offers many new moods of songs we think we know so well. Under a title that recalls the songwriting humour of Roger Miller and Steve Martin’s comedy stylings alike, the EPs offer a surprising and compelling mix of gravity and levity. From Earl Scruggs to Serj Tankian, the two parts of ‘Easy Listening for Jerks’ find surprising common ground between traditional bluegrass and hard rock in the selection of songs of estrangement, misanthropy and adversity. Foggy Mountain Boys, but make it Beetlejuice.
‘Easy Listening for Jerks, Parts I & II’ arrive in full on March 4, 2022.
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With thanks to Thrillhill Music