Steel Train - Twilight Tales from the Prairies of the Sun

Genre pop Publisher Drive Thru Records External Links Official Site Drive Thru

I have always been drawn to musicians who have the ability to cut and paste musical styles. Whether it be Mike Patton making Middle Eastern albums with John Zorn, Dillinger Escape Plan fusing South American rhythms with blast beats, or Tortoise blending Kraut Rock, Dub, Jazz to help define the nineties Post Rock scene. Even when DJ's started mash-ups I was interested. Whether the end product in this homogenization good thing, that remains to be decided by the listener.

Steel Train are from New Jersey. The name brings up ideas of some strait up country, not that western bullshit you here now and again. When I received this album I was somewhat excited, after having caught myself listening Jim White amongst others as of late, but Jersey? Well the aforementioned DEP are from as well, so why not. The group's press mentioned a list of musical influences that could be great, could be terrible. Samba, Jazz, Country, Rock, Singer/Songwriter sensibilities. This album has these many influences portrayed in a good light by a group of trained musicians (one of the members played Simba in Julie Taymor's Lion King). Although the album is technically astute I find myself thinking I've heard this before. Steel Train quite a bit reminds me of Gomez (what happened to them, by the way?) with the pop ideals of similarly named Train (although Train is still on my top five for worst lyrical content in a major act ever).

As this album (entitled Twilight Tales from the Prairies of the Sun) plays, I find myself appreciating a solid band that plays these styles as promised, myself starting to sense new ideas. The songwriting sees influences from late sixties/early seventies (Simon and Garfunkel for example). The real kicker for this particular album is this: Producer Stephen Barncard, whose credits include The Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Twilight Tales from the Prairies of the Sun also boasts guests David Grisman and Gene Parsons, only adding to both creed and well, musicality. Having been touring in support, Steel Train recently made a very well received appearance at the Bonnaroo Festival, and are gearing up for an august tour with Limbeck.

While Steel Train aren't creating any astounding paths, they are doing a fine job of being widely acceptable without being mediocre, a rare thing in this day and age.