As I sit on my bed and listen to Songs from a Mean Season, I am twenty hours removed from having all four of my wisdom teeth removed. The pain really isn't all that bad, but I can still taste blood when I swallow, and my cheeks are pretty bruised. Then I start to really listen to the music entering into my ears, and I can't really feel anything anymore. Why they gave me Vicodin to ease my pain, I'll never really know, because I don't need it. All I need is a dose of Songs from a Mean Season every few hours, and everything else simply disappears.
Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Songs from a Mean Season is Tulsa Drone's evocative and ambient follow-up to 2004's No Wake. Although using vocals in two of the songs, Songs from a Mean Season is instrumentally based, combining the lonely sounds of the dulcimer with drums, guitars, trumpets, and organs, to create an oddly paired but well matched musical soundscape. Tulsa Drone are truly masters of their craft, holding a full command over their unconventional style of music, never letting it elude them and become something out of their control.
Unlike many other instrumental bands today, Tulsa Drone is not epic in their approach, creating twenty minute long songs on a four track album. Rather, Songs from a Mean Season is ten different songs that each have their own spirit and identity and bring something totally different to the table, from the lonely Western "We'll Take Oregon Hill" to the short yet stormy and climactic dulcimer filled "There Isn't a Single Star." Tulsa Drone is as visual in their approach as they are in their musical ability, filling the listeners head with images of lightning striking the open plain to the lights of a city twirling at high speed.
While Songs from a Mean Season is an instrumental album at heart, the song that surprisingly stands out the most is "The Plague," featuring full out vocals by guitar player Eric Grotz. Beginning with the sound of a midday thunderstorm, Grotz's deep and haunting vocals come into picture, promising, "Oh, we'll bring back the plague, my friends." Following "The Plague" is the album's longest song, the nine minute long beauty, "The Catch," which features a lofty buildup and ends with the lonesome sound of the trumpet. Signifying the end of the album is "Laurel Street," starting with the bang of fireworks and assuring the listener that despite all of the loneliness we have just gone through, there is hope after all.
Songs from a Mean Season is able to lift you from where you are, and transform you to anywhere else you want to be, wherever that me be. For me, Tulsa Drone is the antidote to the battle currently being waged in my mouth, helping me ignore any of the discomfort I may be feeling. Let it be whatever you want, because in all honesty, the possibilities are endless.
