Those Poor Bastards - The Plague [2008]

Prepare to be baptized, space cadets! With their 2008 release The Plague, Those Poor Bastards herald an important point in music history, nay, American history: country music has finally become self-aware and self-critical.

And the results are like succor for the damned! Those Poor Bastards split vocal duties between two personas: “Lonesome Wyatt” and “The Minister,” both of whom sport over-the-top “country” schwag for live shows. The over-determined lyrics play with country music conventions, establishing the familiar themes of pistol-based suicidal urges, Christianly angst, Bible verses, sodomy, the devil, hellfire, and a general sense of feeling ornery and disenfranchised.

“Sick & Alone” is an obvious and admirable ode to Cash. In “A Curse,” the speaker, masterfully channeling the voice of some diseased carnival barker, tells us it’s “time to put on your hypocrite shoes / You liar! / You liar!” The band’s website captions Hank Williams III’s reference to “gothic country,” but I think we could just as easily call this “mock country.” To be blunt, I’ll bet my favorite whiskey flask that Unknown Hinson owns a copy of this album.

All yucks aside, Those Poor Bastards still manage to weave together an impressive aural tapestry. Among sections of what I can only describe as Nine Inch Nails gone country lie some “authentic-sounding” accordion sections and hand-crashed cymbal punctuations. Listening to the album feels a bit like dropping an overgenerous dose of acid, wandering into an Alabama revivalist church, and then making for the nearest dive bar. This aesthetic is relevant in the same way that Tom Waits is relevant. With track titles like “Barn Burning,” “A Curse,” and “Evil on My Mind,” Those Poor Bastards take the sort of thematic content that obsessed troubadours like Cash and take it a few steps further, inflating and distorting the conventions until they threaten to burst at the seams. At times this music inspires laughter, and at other times, outright fear.

The album’s sixth cut reminds us “The Plague is here,” and I can’t help wondering what exactly we should worry about. Maybe the answer lies within the album artwork, and that sinister vulture—the one that looks suspiciously like a deformed eagle preparing to prey upon the American landscape. Hmmm.

Carrion birds aside, we’re all dirty sinners, and it follows that we should all pass through The Plague’s purifying flames. Enjoy!

Memorable line: “I’ve been disemboweled by the blues”

—Major Tom

Check out Those Poor Bastards!