The Pine Hill Haints - Smoke

I truly dig the Pine Hill Haints sound, although they can be truly difficult to describe - which is certainly not necessarily a bad thing! They call themselves purveyors of "Ghost Music" - sounds that they feel are generally dead in the modern world. I have said that they mix old-world folk, zydeco, Irish jigs, bluegrass, blues, rockabilly and more and that's about the best that I can do! Lead singer/guitarist Jamie continues to be joined by mandolinist/washboardist/singing saw mistress Katie, along with Steve on washtub bass and banjo, JR Collins on snare drum, Justin Ward squeezing the accordion and stretchin' out the trombone and JD Wilkes from Th' Legendary Shack Shakers playing some wild harmonica on this record and on their most recent tour.

Jamie's distorted modern/old-sounding guitar takes front'n'center on the appropriately spooky "Blue Halloween", but Katie's singin' saw gives it the proper ambiance. They get positively punk-rock-frantic but remain melodic for "Death of the Buffalo Girl" and come across like a high speed Carter Family or Pete Seeger for "I'll Ramble", which uses the accordion for terrific flavoring. "The Col's Last Mardi Gras" fittingly sounds like a heavy New Orleans funeral march, complete with trombone, and then Jamie pulls out his fiddle for some fine playing on the bluegrass dance of "The Full Moon Waltz". "Pea Ridge Blues" is a bouncy combination of blues/folk and rockabilly and they take the traditional "When the Cowboys Roamed the Western Range", which they learned from Leadbelly, and make it their own.

I'll be damned if "The Girl From Shiloh" isn't practically a power-pop song (in their own unique manner, of course), and then "The Cold Blue Hours of Night" sounds like a hip campfire song, with its acoustic guitar and acoustic harmonica (JD can play nice'n'purty when he wants to, as well as dirty'n'bluesy), "Buffalo Girl" is the traditional square dance number with Jamie providing some cool fiddle again, "The Mystic Order of Bones" is their version of New Orleans Dixieland (sorta kinda?!), again highlighted by wavy trombone, "Witching Hour Blues" is a hep jump-blues where JD excels and trades licks with Jamie (who kinda borrows the vocal melody of Chuck Berry's "Downbound Train") and they stay in a somewhat bluesy/folk vein with more superior saw playing for the closure, "Rusty Vans Move West" that has some (probably unintentional) hints of "Deja Vu All Over Again", oddly enough.

Jamie has a great voice that is really evocative and works exceedingly well with this material and I dig the imagery of his lyrics, as well. Heck, I kinda dig most everything about this band! The more I hear, the more I like 'em. See their live shows for sure, but these CD's are fine souvenirs of the experience, as well.