David Conrad’s biting baritone helps define the fatalistic tone of Conrad y Skordalia’s Wild Territory, the duo’s third full-length. Along with Rebecca Weiner Tompkins’ violin, which fills in the spaces of their well-written folk-rock songs, Conrad’s voice and his bass playing breathe life into material that explores big subjects like death, contingency and the vexed concept of manifest destiny as it exists in the Trump era.
“Down East” examines the parallel lives of a man and woman who meet at a Maine bar and exchange stories about how things have gone wrong. Meanwhile, Conrad and Tompkins pay tribute to the late Nashville musician Tom Mason, who died in Minneapolis in 2024, in “Boat Coming In (for Tom Mason).” Wild Territory remains even-handed amid all the tales of mixed-up lives and missed chances, and the music — colloquially turned post-Mekons rock that never gets too heavy — is special.
Conrad y Skordalia cover Dan Penn and Chips Moman’s venerable cheating song “The Dark End of the Street.” It’s usually played quite slowly, as if the characters are trying to savor, every second; the duo renders it at a medium tempo that suggests they possesses a keen sense of irony. Wild Territory is dark, but it never sounds defeated. The music’s intelligence keeps everything moving.
Find the record on Bandcamp or your favorite streaming service and watch the duo’s website for updates.
