From the misty, pine-covered hills of the Pacific Northwest hail the Bridge City Sinners, who span the continuum from prohibition-era jazz to Appalachian death folk. This traditional string band lineup bends the meaning of the word genre, playing festivals from Punk Rock Bowling, to Muddy Roots, to Oregon’s Bluegrass String Summit.
They started their journey by busking on sidewalks across the country and now this supergroup of musicians find themselves on the national tour circuit. The Sinners still hold true to the DIY mentality of putting albums out on a self-made record label, Flail Records. With talented musicianship and a punk as f***! live show, this is one band you don’t want to miss.
Dark Folk? Pre-wartime-era Jazz? Murderfolk? Folk Punk? Blackgrass? Nailing down the genre of the Bridge City Sinners has always been difficult, but the title of their upcoming album sums it up in two words: Unholy Hymns. With a lineup of banjo, fiddle, upright bass, banjolele, and guitar, they take acoustic music in a new, and much darker direction. The album has been divided up into two distinctly different sounding halves.
The first half of Unholy Hymns, “Book l”, relies heavily on their normal dark yet playful, folk and jazz roots, and at the same time expands upon their discography with complex subject matter including addiction and mental health issues. The second half of the album, “Book ll”, leans much deeper into the darkness. An epic of terror and woe, this short concept album within an album is full of orchestral arrangements and evil screams of despair.
