Stay a Little Longer
Rootsy Seattle transplants The Believers make Nashville their town on their spirited debut
For a musical act, a name like The Believers might imply a vocal group testifying in church or a band with a stack of amps cranking up fist-pumping anthems about the glories of rock 'n' roll. "Believers" Cynthia Frazzini and Craig Aspen, however, write songs that have more gray areas than such a band name suggests.
The roots-rock duo moved from Seattle to Nashville in September 2004, but they didn't set out to land on Music Row. With songs about desperation and deliverance, and with their lone recorded cover being a Southern blues take of "Subterranean Homesick Blues," they're not here to compete with Brooks & Dunn or Big & Rich. Instead, the thrift-store couple fit Todd Snider's idea that East Nashville is home to musical iconoclasts and misfits. The Believers likely would be more excited about comparisons with another Americana couple, Buddy and Julie Miller, than with any hint of commercial country music.
The duo's new album, Crashyertown, straddles the last two cities in which they've lived. Produced by Steve Adamek in Everett, Wash., and mastered by Ray Kennedy in Nashville, Crashyertown has West Coast swagger without the amateurish arrangements that sometimes hamper alt-country bands, and it has Music City tightness without the lyrical or musical gloss.
"Railroad Spikes & Shotgun Shells," a song about a dreamer who turns an impulsive backseat moment into a life-changing event, weds a driving beat to hard-strummed guitars and mandolins. Thinking he's found salvation, the guy grabs his guitar and leaves his wife only to find himself forsaken when his new lover fails to show at their rendezvous point. Aspen's voice, raspy and reeking of pent-up desire, is reminiscent of Bob Delevante's distinctive burr, and it plays nicely off of Frazzini's sultry, full-throated alto.
Crashyertown never stays in one place too long. The title cut, for example, has the chiming melodic progressions and soaring soul of the Millers. Elsewhere, Aspen and Frazzini drag their heels to a honky-tonk two-step, whisper and moan through folk-country tunes, raise a little hell to a banjo-and-tuba hoedown and tear into a back-alley blues about a pregnant woman running from her addictions and hoping to expedite her transition to everlasting peace. "Don't think anyone there will mind me hanging around," the two harmonize on "Crashyertown," and judging by their debut, they should be able to linger as long as they may want.
—Michael McCall
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