Eamon McGrath — 13 Songs of Whiskey and Light
13 Songs of Whiskey and Light is a compilation that contains, yes, thirteen songs, all culled from the eighteen (!) albums Canadian musician Eamon McGrath had recorded in the three years before this collection was unleashed upon the world. The sheer body of work is impressive, and if anything it suggests that McGrath is a serial singer-songwriter by heart. Most of the work can roughly be filed under folk/punk, venturing either distinctly into one of the two genres or combining them to various degrees of success. What we may understand as the folk element here, is basically a barebones acoustic musical setting supporting some sort of narrative; music to set a text to rather than the reverse, making McGrath a troubadour in the most traditional sense of the word.
Thematically, McGrath seems to touch upon the rumble and roar of small town Canada and the little joys and hardships of life, alternating between true-to-life and more abstract narrative, and so finds a place with both the Springsteens and the Jandeks of this world. There’s a definite and clear appeal in the tributes to small things, as McGrath then paints them sharply and familiarly, and then casts them in a more unfamiliar light, catching you off-guard a bit and reconsidering what you think you know so well. McGrath’s language, otherwise, is straightforward but effective, and occasionally has the vaguest sense of subtle poetry to it, and though it does not necessarily move, it neither has the annoying pretentiousness many self-proclaimed songwriters feel the need to vomit all over the listener. I can find quite the joy in a brief line such as “The winter has melted/And the snow is gone”, which may not be dead clever, but is lovely nonetheless.
Musically, there’s both the stripped-down acoustic folk sound, with only piano or acoustic guitar to support McGrath, as well as a fuller sound that ventures closer to punk rock, with mid- to up-tempo drums and wailing electric guitars providing a decidedly more raw and rugged backdrop. On Cadillac Rosetowne, for instance, the sound is most reminiscent of sing-along folk punk usually encountered in Irish bars; here, McGrath shows what is doubtlessly his punk-rock-est self. McGrath himself cites such various influences as, of course, Tom Waits, along with Robert Johnson, Black Flag and even Wolf Eyes. The gruffness-meets-folk-meets-80s-hardcore, I guess, makes sense, though any hint of true noise is truly, strikingly absent, and the music neither has the bold experimentalism nor the down-and-dirty sound of your average Wolf Eyes record (whatever that may be, of course); instead, it sounds fairly ordinary, though that is by no means a point of criticism.
McGrath sings with a wavering, defiant tone, as much expressing an angry world-weariness as a distaste of anything so banal as a singing voice; if it not tuneless and unattractive, so the line of reasoning behind it seems to go, it cannot come from the heart. Yet the sullen, tired way in which McGrath speaks – not sings, really – his lines sometimes seems slightly too put-on; the unschooled, untalented singer is no new concept, and McGrath does not strike a chord with me as possible references such as Tom Waits, Jandek and Jeff Mangum do. At times, it almost feels as though McGrath feels obliged to work in the tradition of the unskilled singing man, while he’s not necessarily even cut out to be that guy. Yet it does not sound unpretty, I guess; in a purely aesthetic way, and if you can find it in yourself to momentarily forget all about how much McGrath loves Tom Waits, there’s enough to enjoy here.
At its worst, 13 Songs of Whiskey and Light feels slightly too much like a too overtly contrived attempt at being a punk rock Tom Waits. Yet at its best, it makes you forget about Tom Waits and punk rock and anything meta-Eamon-ical, and you suddenly feel like McGrath is sitting there on your lap, reciting passages from some lost Sherwood Anderson novella in his trademark gruff voice, occasionally wandering over to your piano to bang on it with little regard for melody but much regard for banging a piano so that it provides just the perfect backdrop to a song about drinking Scotch after a hard day’s blue collar work. 13 Songs of Whiskey and Light may not be the most groundbreaking thing to’ve been released this side of the 00’s, but it’s a pretty good and, perhaps, valid record nonetheless.