Wino Wednesday: The Hidden Hand, “The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote”
I’m not sure anyone knew at the time that The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote was going to be the last The Hidden Hand album. Maybe the band itself, which had seen drummer Matt Moulis (now of Unmothered) come aboard as a replacement for Evan Tanner, himself a replacement for Dave Hennessy alongside bassist/vocalist/producer Bruce Falkinburg and guitarist/vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich, but certainly not me at the time. I remember having been so enamored of the trio’s prior outing, 2004’s Mother Teacher Destroyer — still for my money among the best albums Wino has played on — that when the follow-up hit in 2007, I appreciated the progression but was left somewhat cold by the affect of the songs as a whole.
Time has for the most part cured me of that. If I’m reaching for a record by The Hidden Hand, I’m probably likeliest to go for their second, but the third has proven worth appreciating on its own level, and just as their 2003 debut had to overcome the fact that it wasn’t Spirit Caravan, so too did The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote have to overcome the righteousness of three years earlier. The Wino/Falkinburg dynamic was at its peak, and more than either of their other albums, the last one finds The Hidden Hand with its own cohesive songwriting process, distinct from what any party might otherwise come up with on their own but still owing a piece of itself to their individual influences.
To wit, “The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote” itself. The title-track hammered home the album’s concept of a new American Revolution — sort of wishful thinking in the dark ages of the Bush era and the Iraq War (how’d that turn out again?) — and did so with a sound definitively The Hidden Hand‘s own. Falkinburg takes the lead on vocals, joined by Wino in the chorus, and the effect of the two of them together is enough to justify a revisit to the record as a whole. If you don’t have it, it was on Southern Lord, so there should still be some copies floating around somewhere.
Enjoy and have a great Wino Wednesday.
