Dreams, magic, and life are all on display in Sean R. McLaughlin & The Wind-Up Crows‘ debut album, Goodnight, Lad. In a world driven by categorization and finding a box to put things in, McLaughlin and the Crows don’t really fit. Are they folk? Absolutely, but they rock with an intensity rarely seen in the world of roots. Adding found sounds and featuring the likes of Indian classical violinist Ragini Shankar an ever-evolving soundscape. As they say in The Lightning Tree, “There’s a beautiful chaos in all that we do.”
That chaos is what makes them so unique. There’s an extraordinary freedom in not having any rules. Despite a basic line-up of guitar, fiddle, double bass, mandolin and drums, their music is anything but basic. Informed by the sounds of tuning and found vocal samples, Unburnt Viola sounds like a basic folk band, incredibly well-recorded by McLaughlin and co-producer Jeremy Backofen (The Felice Brothers). Then, when the drums get amped up, driving right into Wishing Well, it becomes blatantly apparent this is no ordinary band. They turn toward rock with lyrics that sound a modern call, “Cliff top, penny drop, never get older/ Moving to the north where the winters are colder/ There I’ll get a graft for the chip on my shoulder.”
With these sonic shifts, McLaughlin and the band combine so many unexpected elements that you’re never sure what will be heard next. Shankar appears on Hairband, creating a cross-cultural blend that makes perfect sense. Guitar and violin enhance the feeling of a dreamscape-drenched, half-wakened state as he sings, “The ghosts you choose to hide, fly around our room at night/ You close your eyes and they pull on every part of you/ Until the wave breaks in a wash of grey-blue light.” Found vocal sounds only add to the marvel and mystery.
While Shankar is a violinist of remarkable skill, Vicky Gray (vocals, fiddle & viola) is no slouch either. Throughout the rest of the album, her skill is on display. Feathers feature her along with the mandolin of Stephen Thorn on a song that is impossible not to like when the opening gambit is “Slept through the funeral/ But didn’t I try to go?”
Again and again, a sense of humanity comes through in McLaughlin’s lyrics. Lines like “In 2007, running into the waves/ We were freezing our balls off and singing in caves/ Your father had died and work was a joke/So we ran to the coast before something else broke.” This is as human a work as you are likely to hear; everything rings true. The Worm is especially poignant, a not quite lullaby that ends, “The worm burrows in through my ear/ He always knows to find me here/ He unearths the worry, he unearths the fear/ The worm burrows in through my ear.”
Not a word is wasted, not a sound out of place. By the time Goodnight, Lad ends, it is evident that Sean R. McLaughlin & The Wind-Up Crows are a most special band—one that ensnares you; one to revel in.
Goodnight, Lad (3rd May 2024) is out on Stitch Records
Digital/CD/Vinyl via https://windupcrows.bandcamp.com/album/goodnight-lad-2