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Album Review

Dave Rawlings Machine
A Friend of a Friend Acony

Article written by Matt H - Jan 29, 2010

Dave Rawlings - This Machine Kills Mosquitos, hopefully.

Long time right hand man of a wonderful updater of country tradition, Dave Rawlings has swapped roles with Gillian Welch, who backs him up on this collection of ostensibly square-jawed country rock and old time tunes. What sets this above the mass, is not so much the virtuosity (though that's there) as the sheer quality of the songwriting. It's shot through with a similar hopeful melancholy that Welch is so good at capturing, whether barrelling along in relative romps (like the Ryan Adams assisted To be Young) or the tender and soft voiced I Hear Them All.

Tellingly and pleasingly, when picking a Bright Eyes cover Rawlings turns not to one of Conor Oberst's more grown-up and folkily acceptable later records but Method Acting from the less well-mannered (career high-point I reckon) Lifted, lending it gentle dignity with his calm reading before segueing into Neil Young's Cortez the Killer. There are fewer and fewer for whom "country" music is something to automatically avoid, but even those might just have their heads turned by Rawlings (and certainly by Welch's other records). Anyone who's already open to it ought to revel in this.

Links:
http://www.aconyrecords.com/DRM/
http://www.myspace.com/daverawlingsmachine