Review Summary: In which the gimmick becomes a tool for the unique.
Since the get-go, Amigo the Devil has been occupying a certain Me & That Man or King Dude type place in the general gothic folk music. His is the gimmicky acoustic ghoulishness beholden to the occult or the Americana folklore, more commonly known as murderfolk, permeated with spicy stories of the depraved, heretical, and violent. All fun and good, but often dwelling too much on a definite
a e s t h e t i c that took the reigns over the writing. This in turn caused plenty of Amigo’s music to flatline and repeat a similar image over and over. I am happy to report that three albums in, the gimmick has become a tool, and Amigo has grown from a performer to a craftsman. (You can pluralise each pronoun and address to the artist, if you wish, seeing as this has always been a duo-ish project, but the song-writer and performer is always just Danny Kiranos, while the other half is his partner who does the management and booking.)
Your Until the War is Over is in part the same somewhat intentionally funny unserious effort as Amigo’s previous albums with a later sudden shift to a surprising very unfunny very serious opposite. But for some reason, this time around Danny Kiranos manages to both deepen his gnarly nature, but completely turn what hitherto was a mere underlying catch into a proper narrative and musical vessel. It is unclear whether Kiranos entered the creative process with a concrete concept or aim in mind, but the thematic focus on more of an impersonal tall tale and an instrumental/production direction intentionally rustier and crustier the album as a whole works wonders where the others usually displayed a need for filtration away from its chosen style. As such, the preceding albums presented a lot of ambition, but not a lot of contentment with their façade. Opposing them is now this newest, fully committed to its premise, finding ways newer still to explore and deliver.
From the starting notes of “Hanging by the Roots” it becomes obvious that Amigo the Devil is channelling deep Frontier balladry and song-slinging.
Gimme that Buster Scruggs-type beat. Add a grimier tone and a crisper sound, voila, you got an album. Personal issues, especially Kiranos’ struggles with addiction and depression, have always been a major driving force behind many a song, but for the first time they do not seem like a split among songs, shifting off the focus in a jarring way. See, here he manages to write on the issue in a way that fits into the almost fantastical world otherwise lacing the album together. “I’m Going to Heaven” is a hilarious and aptly unhinged tale of a drug-fuelled battle with God. That song is narrative gold that turns dour once “Cannibal Within” rolls around deeper in the tracklist and cleverly turns the hilarity of that tale on its head with a harrowing realisation of consequences of drug use. It is a haunting track accentuated by its loud simplicity. But it also does not come out of nowhere in the middle of an otherwise telltale tracklist. Its place is a necessary moment of reflection, like a character progression in the middle of a film.
Here the tide of the storytelling turns around to form a more dramatic heart. The murderfolk core is now used not as a coating for bland folk songs, but as a skilfully crafted object of atmospheric utility. “Cannibal Within” is understandably the album’s sourest moment, but the noteworthy musical depression in tone lowers and lifts going in and away from this cut. The preceding “Agnes” is the only baffling moment on the album, a short droning interlude that largely serves to slow down the pace and prepare the listened for its heavy follow-up. After “Cannibal Within” comes an equally slow, but slightly more poetic and cryptic “Garden of Leaving”. Only with the beautiful “Virtue and Vitriol” do things start picking up and by the end of “One Day at a Time”, the initial speed and energy is back. One of the best songs on the album, “Stray Dog”, returns the Wild West outlaw narrative and sets it to the rustiest sound this side of tin and brass banjos of the Dust Bowl era. It brings the musical-thematic intent of the album cleverly back around, reinstating the heart full of stories and struggles, which wants to tell all.
It is all about the heart, which wants to tell all. And tell it to all who listen. Like the road songs of the Frontier, shrouded in suffocating dust,
Your Until the War is Over is a crude collection of cruel tunes. It marches at the same speed, whether telling a made up story of divine encounters or drowning in self-doubt.
