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.

The Hidden Hand, “The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote”

“Purple Neon Dream” was the opening track on the last and most progressive of the three The Hidden Hand albums, The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote. Compared to some of what follows it, I wouldn’t go as to call it a highlight, but it does its job well enough. Like a lot of the record, it seems to lose its sense of structure about halfway through and just kind of collapse at its ending, which, incidentally, is also what the band did after The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote came out.

Be that as it may, and whatever brought about their end before they could do another full-length — by all indications it seems to have been a falling out between Wino and bassist/vocalist Bruce Falkinburg — The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote is a standout in the Wino catalog for how its textures unfold. Where sometimes Wino‘s heavier material retains the stripped-down structured feel of his acoustic work, the final Hidden Hand outing didn’t, and both Wino and Falkinburg pushed the band’s sound to places it hadn’t gone on either of the two prior albums.

All the more interesting, then, that Wino should wind up in Germany being recorded playing the song acoustic in what looks like a kickass shag chair in a kickass living room. The clip below of “Purple Neon Dream” predates Wino‘s acoustic debut, Adrift, by some three years, but it’s plain to see the roots of what would become that album taking shape in the below. Of course, in the interim, Wino‘s Wino trio would release their only LP, Punctuated Equilibrium (2009), followed all too soon by the death of bassist Jon Blank, and Wino would front the reformed Saint Vitus on European and US tours in 2009, so there were certainly plenty of other factors to consider in going from one to the next.

Still, this one’s a great listen. Hope you enjoy and have a happy Wino Wednesday:

Wino, “Purple Neon Dream,” Acoustic in 2007

By the time they got around to releasing their swansong, 2007’s The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote, it was becoming clear all was not well within the band. They’d toured hard in the US and Europe for 2004’s Mother Teacher Destroyer and the ensuing Devoid of Colour limited EP, and having seen a couple drummers come and go and the straining relationship between guitarist/vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich and bassist/vocalist Bruce Falkinburg, the band simply dissolved after the release of their third record.

They broke up despite some considerable momentum in their favor. For the stylistic shifts it represented — more progressive than the album before it, more conceptual — it was nonetheless a killer record, with Weinrich‘s signature tone a distinct factor in carrying across the songs while both he and Falkinburg showed off how tight their vocal arrangements had become. It didn’t last — three albums in five years is more than a lot of bands get to do — but their work during their time together is worthy of consideration as more than just what Wino was doing before he started the Wino band and hooked up with Shrinebuilder. Underrated, I guess is what I’m saying, and I know I’ve said it before.

“Slow Rain” closed out The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote, and so would be the final song of The Hidden Hand‘s career. At 7:20, it’s also the longest track they ever wrote, and hearing it again now, it’s a shame they couldn’t have built on what they did here for another outing. So it goes. Good band, good album, good listen. I hope you enjoy it, and hope you have (or have had, given the time of day) a happy Wino Wednesday: