Trout Steak Revival, a Denver-based band that will be playing at DU this Friday, previewed their twangy bluegrass opening for fellow folk darlings Pert Near Sandstone at the Bluebird last Thursday. Performing songs from both of their albums, Trout Steak Revivial and Flight, as well as some unrecorded tunes, this band proved it has all the makings of a Colorado favorite – variety, balance and the kind of contagious toe-tapping that can only come with great on-stage chemistry.
Revival, which will be headlining DUPB’s Fall Folk Fest this Friday at 6 p.m. in the Sidelines Pub, played a set of nine songs that fit squarely in the folky bluegrass/Americana genre, but provided a spectrum of interpretations, from jazzy to bluesy to country to rock. Consisting of a mandolin (Steve Foltz), banjo (Travis McNamara), guitar/dobro (Will Koster), standup bass (Casey Houlihan) and fiddle (Bevin Foley), the members alternated on vocals, giving each song a unique personality and furthering the complex sound-texture of the pieces.
The band opened with “Love, Please Come Home,” a lively knee-slapping Bill Monroe cover that was quintessentially bluegrass, with female vocals (and yodels) by Foley. The song climaxed in an extended instrumental break with combo-style soloing, inherently characteristic of the band’s primarily instrumental drive. The bouncy melody gives the demure-looking Foley a southern belle-gone-bad attitude which returned again in the 12th song of the set, “Greasy Coat,” with lyrics, “I don’t drink and I don’t smoke and I don’t wear no greasy coat / I don’t dance and I don’t sing and I don’t wear no diamond ring.”
Revival followed the square-dance worthy opener with a more cosy tune, “Ashes to Ashes,” which showcased a more elegant side of their instrumental repertoire and allowed various instrumental voices to shine throughout the piece. The solo vocals by McNamara mimicked the raw, imperfect crooning of folk-rock favorites like Mumford and Sons and the Lumineers. This mellow, modern take on folk music reappeared in the fourth song, “Colorado River” and “Where do My Bluebird Fly,” a Tallest Man on Earth cover, both of which used cascading violin voices and haunting harmonies like those of Andrew Bird to create layers of melodies.
Toward the middle of the show, the band took a darker turn, creating an interesting mash-up of bluegrass and bluesy jazz “Rude Awakening,” which uses Foley’s sexy violin crooning against Houlihan’s bellowing voice to construct a complex palete of light and dark moments.
“Awakening” was succeeded by “Darling Corey,” another dark piece that began with cacophonous mixture of voices increasing in speed and incorporated mournful lyrics to create a dark and rebellious country feel. The soloing on this song, especially from Koster’s dromo, highlighted how the band used syncopation to maintain the feel of multiple genres throughout the song – maintain the bass and guitar line in common time and drawling into the off beats to keep up the bluegrass feel underneath, while layering more syncopated time signatures in the fiddle, banjo and mandolin.
The show quickly picked up to lighter tunes, including a happy and carefree song by Foley, who sings simply, “I love nobody and nobody loves me” in the classic song “I Don’t Love Nobody.” The band grew even more playful with the yet- unrecorded crowd favorite “Pie,” with the whole band singing “Pie, pie, pie all I want is pie.”
The band kicked off the closing set of songs with a locomotive instrumental piece which paced vigorous soloing with rhythmic unison cords, creating a train-like pace to make the perfect mountain driving song for an autumn day. The closing songs were a resampling of some familiar bluegrass angles, with Revival ending the show with the same backwoods bustlin’, hootin’ and hollerin’ they started with.
Bluegrass fan or not, the self-proclaimed “mountain music” of Trout Steak Revival creates enough variety and texture through soloing, layering and syncopation to appeal to any musical tastes. Further, the clean studio sound of their albums does not do justice to their unmistakable dynamic and spontaneity cultivated through years of live performance.
Trout Steak Revival is truly a Colorado diamond in the rough – and like any Colorado treasure, should be enjoyed with fall flannel on and microbrew in hand. You can catch them free at the Pub for DUPB’s Fall Folk Fest at 6 p.m.
