Lee Countys Finest, the new album from Alabamas BB PALMER, expands on
the themes explored in 2016s debut EP, Belle Fontaine, named after the
area on the west coast of Mobile bay, where singer/song writer Bernard
Breitung grew up. Breitung, who goes by BB PALMER, writes songs that
tackle big topics, subjects that main stream country artists tend to
shy away from, such as mortality, addiction and environmental
catastrophe. You could call it cosmic country, but Im not sure that
goes far enough. Rather pretentiously, I have chosen to describe it as
existential honky tonk. The music is comprised of classic honky tonk
elements, with twanged, strummed and plucked guitars, weeping steel
and a sweet fiddle scratch behind PALMERS DISTINCTIVE, idiosyncratic
voice. Lee Countys Finest is somewhat of a trip, a listening
experience from start to finish, with samples and ambiances linking
the tracks in a continual sonic flow. When I first contacted BB,
asking to hear the new album, he was most definite that this was how
the album should be considered, as a cohesive whole, rather than as a
collection of individual songs. BB PALMER 2.jpg On repeated listens,
the songs unfurl as the lyrics sink into your consciousness,
suggesting questions as much as revealing answers. The depths of these
songs seem to plunge further away as you become more familiar with
them, until you are staring into the abyss of pain and struggle that
is the human condition, wrestling with the facts of reincarnation,
resurrection and Armageddon. As I said, this is existential honky
tonk. I decided the best way to get a handle on where PALMER WAS
COMING FROM WITH THIS ALBUM WAS TO ASK THE MAN HIMSELF. Listening to
this album, I get the feeling that there is a narrator delivering
these songs, that there may be a theme to the album. What are your
thoughts about the album? How do you want it to be understood? Or is
it just a collection of tunes? Right. From the narrators perspective,
there is a story line, The band set out to do this record to flow like
one entire piece, broken into eleven sections. There are many themes
(lyrically and sonically). Without getting too deep, the three broad
themes are; The battle or balance between Good and Evil, Struggle
versus Triumph, and Conscious Mortality versus Eternal Life, all
classic themes that have been done many times before throughout
history, but done in a way thats interpreted through the scope of life
and culture in Alabama, the south in general, and in a broader sense,
the US and the world. Theres no particular way we would like it to be
understood, we leave that up to the listener.
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11/04/2020 Last update