By now, hopefully you’ve had time to roll a fattie and sit down with Sound & Fury, the new LP and accompanying anime film (and, next year, a graphic novel) from Sturgill Simpson. The project is a forward-leaning “steamy, sleazy rock ’n’ roll record,” as Simpson said, and it’s a beautifully rendered critique of greed run rampant in both the music business specifically and Information Age culture in general. Is Sound & Fury something like “The Wall for our time”? Sure, there are some useful parallels you can draw, in that it’s a work of cultural criticism with a phenomenal multimedia component. But the new release is very much its own beast.
Simpson and his band (drummer Miles Miller, bassist Chuck Bartels and keyboardist Bobby Emmett) will presumably be doing some large-scale touring in the U.S. later on (and there are some dates booked in Europe for January and February). For now they’re focused on a very short underplay tour — that’s industry lingo for deliberately playing smaller venues than they could fill — with proceeds benefitting the Special Forces Foundation. The nonprofit serves U.S. Army Special Forces (aka Green Berets), with programs designed for troops and their families who have been coping with the strain of ongoing operations for nearly two decades. Visit the foundation’s website for more info and to make a donation.
There are two shows left on this tour, and the likelihood that you’ll get into one is slim. But thanks to YouTube user themeboudin, you can get a little peek at what it’s like. Above, see Simpson & Co. play “Fastest Horse in Town,” the slow-burning tune that ends Sound & Fury, at the Oct. 6 show at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. (HT: Rolling Stone Country's Jon Freeman.) It’s an extended 10-minute run, with some of the compact jamming (and fantastic guitar playing) that marked the band’s set at Bonnaroo 2018.
