Friday Full-Length: Stonegrass, 2
I’m going to try my best not to chastise myself too hard for missing Stonegrass‘ 2 when it was released in 2025. I went back and looked and I didn’t get an email about it, and though I dug the Ontario-based band’s 2020 debut (review here), the follow-up on Cosmic Range Records got by me. It happens. I tell myself it isn’t Pokemon. You’re never gonna catch ’em all. This is a mantra.
The organ line behind the boppy guitar solo in “Ghouls” doesn’t help with the wistfulness, but the soul is a comfort. Instrumental in its entirety and seemingly made at least in part improvisationally, the nine-song offering digs in quickly with a bit of guitar growl for an intro before the raw and fuzzed strut of “Joker Street” rolls out. Almost immediately, the guitar of Matthew “Doc” Dunn (also Mellotron and the harmonica on “The Swamp,” etc.) is in the forward position. Dunn is credited with most of the underlying composition throughout 2, but Harrison Forman‘s bass and Jay Anderson‘s drums are no less central, and the added percussion, cowbell, Mellotron, etc. from Asher Gould-Murtagh brings nuance to complement the arrangements. “Joker Street” establishes its riff, departs into a jam, and returns at the end, taking a classic structure and making it the band’s own with an overarching mellowness and an exploration that feels less about redefining a genre whether that’s psych rock, jamming or heavy-toned whathaveyou, and “Blues Celebration” follows with more emphasis on groove — that hi-hat does more work there than it seems — to back the guitar singing out its sliding woes.
This interplay of styles takes place throughout the 43-minute album, and flirtations with different styles manifest fluidly, drawn together by the performance aspect. “Cloud Mountain” is the first of two interludes and is a minute-long, fade-up-and-out shimmer of guitar and keys, perhaps a snippet of a longer section of something, but the quiet moment just before lets “The Swamp” blindside all the more with its immediate boogie and Dunn‘s harmonica. It won’t necessrily be shocking to find out that Dunn doubles as a country solo artist with a classic twang on the guitar — there’s nothing on 2 that feels overly Canadiana at its root, but the delve into classic bluesy psych jamming finds middle ground in what I’ll imagine is a swath of ’70s LPs consumed through influence-osmosis — and the organic vibes Stonegrass prioritize carry over some pastoral element as well.
But there’s more happening in 2 in terms of the flow and the procession, which reveals itself to be moving deeper following the opening salvo of “Joker Street” and “Blues Celebration.” “Cloud Mountain” gives over to “The Swamp,” as noted, and that song might as well have been called “Strutters” if the next song wasn’t already called that, but for sure the two are paired well. Actual-“Strutters” is also longer, less directly bluesy, and holds a consistent rhythm beneath a long solo stretch that isn’t all off-the-cuff but feels like it’s gone adventuring nonetheless.
If I call the eight-minute “Dealer” a highlight, be assured I’m doing so for more than the fact that it’s the longest song on the record. It starts quiet and unfolds a build patiently around airier guitar and keys in a call and response, building up momentum so that after the three-minute mark it can properly take flight. It’s not “Maggot Brain”-level devastation, but it is emotive, and the swagger that typified the two cuts before dissipates in a haze of maybe-regretful guitar. It makes its comparatively extended runtime feel short.
“Dealer” feels like the start of side B, and is singularly dug in accordingly, and followed by “Night Frog” as the well-placed second interlude, though one could argue it’s still a song even without drums and apparent bass. It’s nearly four minutes long (as opposed to “Cloud Mountain,” which you’ll recall was a minute), so that’s a factor as well, but notable more for the way it diverts from the full-band-in-the-room-style proceedings of 2 to that point in favor of more ambient experimentation. A steady low drone acts as the bed for minimal-but-not-without-drama echoes of guitar, distant in effects and almost underwater-sounding by the finish. It’s a little pedal-boardy, but shouldn’t be discounted for what it adds to the record stylistically or in mood heading into “Ghouls” and “Exit Music (for Ellyn Burstyn),” which comprise the closing duo.
If “Night Frog” leaves you wondering how they’ll snap back to reality after such an excursion away therefom, Anderson‘s snare does the job in one hit at the start of “Ghouls.” Welcome back. The guitar joins soon and takes an almost Western-doomly cast, but in laying out an initial riff with the line of organ/Mellotron alongside, it has a light Morricone touch that distinguishes it from “Blues Celebration” or “The Swamp” or “Strutters” back on side A (note: I don’t think they pressed vinyl, but the album is structured for it just the same, so I’m going with it), though Dunn can’t for too long resist shifting into leads. The melody and conversation between guitar and keys are the thing, but “Ghouls” demonstrates again the solidity of the rhythmic foundation on which most of this material rests, and without that movement, it would lack the dimensionality that it very much has.
To round out, “Exit Music (for Ellen Burstyn)” condenses and answers back the emotionalism of “Dealer” by beginning with a minute of standalone guitar before with some cymbal wash before a burst almost exactly at the midpoint brings drums, bass, Mellotron, and the full-volume melodic finish the album has by that point well earned. Unlike some of the material preceding, “Exit Music (for Ellen Burstyn)” holds to its progression, which is to say it doesn’t depart into a jam, and while it’s not without its noodly vibe, it feels purposeful in sticking to the plot, as it were. The keys are the last thing to go, and fair enough.
I don’t believe music has an expiration date — though it can sound dated, sometimes on purpose — so I’m glad to have been able to encounter 2 despite whiffing last year. If you take the time to listen, as always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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I hurt my back last weekend doing yardwork. We’re in a spat with the neighbor kittycorner to us — the side of their back yard meets with the back of our back yard — over where the property line is, and so I was clearing out brush in back to find the pin marking it. Didn’t find that pin, but did immobilize myself for the better part of two days, which sucked royally. It’s still tight in the way I suspect it will be for the next month. It happened — wait for it — straightening up after picking up some sticks. Something just twinged, I said “oh shit,” and then needed to not be standing anymore. Getting old.
The Patient Mrs. loves when I’m injured, so it’s great. She definitely doesn’t side-eye me like I’m a fucking six-year-old trying to fake a fever to get out of going to school or anything. Yeah. It was a great day.
We had a follow-up meeting with The Pecan’s school yesterday after the big one last week. They’re approving her for out-of-district placement, which was the good news, but are going to have us jump through more hoops before actually sending her where we want to send her, which sucks. And we still haven’t heard whether she actually got into that school that feels like it was specifically made for her right down to its maker-space with a 3D printer and such. So yeah, more bullshit there.
Yesterday was also the first day of summer, which is what it is. I’m glad the kid made it through second grade. She had an up and down year, but finished in a better place than she finished first grade, where her teacher was scratching her head wondering what the hell happened. Burnout happened, and we saw it again this year. I’m hoping to let her take it relatively easy — and I emphasize that because she can’t really take it all the way easy or she’ll lose her mind — for the next couple weeks to key down, but that shit never works.
She and I got into it the other night after bedtime when she came down and demanded strawberries because she was still hungry despite my entreaties to get her to eat the entire fucking evening prior. I have bruises from digging my fingers into my arm. I hit my head on one of the kitchen cabinets hard enough that I got a bruise. In the end, instead of telling her to get the fuck back upstairs to bed, I broke and got her the strawberries. The ’80s in me was disgusted. I don’t know if it’s better to err on the side of feeding your kid when they’re hungry or not, but she wasn’t going to leave and I wasn’t willing to physically move her because then I’ll get hit, so there was nothing else to do. I could’ve walked away and shut my bedroom door, but that only escalates. It was more miserable of an argument than we’d had in a while, and I lost. I always lose.
She was stuck on it. She wouldn’t, physically and mentally couldn’t, have relented. The only thing for me to do was capitulate despite having asked her all fucking night if she wanted something to eat, get the strawberries, glare at her wordlessly while she ate them and say good night when she scooted back upstairs. A full 10 minutes later she was back looking for her glasses. “I think they might be in the car,” she said.
Usually it’s like, you ask her to do something, she ignores you three or four times before you get an answer, if you get one at all. “Do you need pizza?” “Do you want anything else to eat before bed?” “You good?” She experiences these as demands rather than offers, and since her brain goes fight-or-flight for FUCKING EVERYTHING, you can’t get the message through. If you’re looking to read a thing, look up ‘pathological demand avoidance.’ That’s her profile 100 percent. It makes every day harder, for her most of all, I have to think.
But yeah, that sucked and felt stupid and shitty, and my back hurts, and I’m tired, and fuck that meeting too and fuck the long summer ahead. I don’t know what’s going on today — I’m going to BJ’s in a bit; I like to go when they open and call it Dad O’Clock because it’s just tired-looking dinguses like me in their 40s and up — but I’m sure by the time it’s over I’ll be cooked, and that’s the story from here on out through Labor Day. I’m just glad she didn’t wake up at six this morning as she has the last two. It rained overnight so the light probably isn’t as bright going in her room around the blinds.
I missed Gozu last night in Brooklyn. I had charged the camera and everything, but between my back hurting and the rest of it, looking at two-plus hours of traffic to get somewhere I didn’t want to go in the first place (Brooklyn) but for the show, I just couldn’t. I probably should have, and regret not, but when I checked it in Maps it was like, “how about you go fuck yourself instead?,” so there you go. Woke up at 5:30 this morning and that’s the only reason I’ve been able to write this without interruption.
I have an appointment to get a tattoo at 1:30 that I need to not forget. Should put a reminder in my phone, probably won’t.
Have a great and safe weekend. Sure everything’s awful, but… but… nah, I got nothing this week. The music’s still good? I don’t know. Keep your head up and keep flipping off every fascist you see. Don’t let these fuckers think they’re normal or that they in any way deserve to be taken seriously. They’re pieces of shit forever and they ruined the world.
Happy summer.
FRM.
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