The Boggs - We Are The Boggs We Are (Arena Rock Music Co., 2002)

The Boggs
We Are The Boggs We Are
Arena Rock Recording Co.
2002

Rating: 6 former Boston Red Sox out of 10

Talk about being fooled. When I saw the cover of this album, I assumed that I would be hearing another Brit-pop band, or an American version of such. Instead, I get...bluegrass? Old-timey music? Roots country? What is this world coming to? Since when do kids like this make music like that?

Turns out The Boggs are a group of lads from Brooklyn who got their start playing on street corners and in subways, and eventually moved their tried and true sound indoors to clubs and recording studios. The entire album is recorded in mono, and it has the warm feel that you get when listening to something along the lines of an Alan Lomax field recording. Some of the songs, such as ‘Whiskey and Rye’ or ‘The Airborne Station’, sound like a non-Irish version of The Pogues, and you can just imagine everyone standing around one microphone in the center of the room when they recorded these tracks. They also tackle Appalacian folk ballads in the form of ‘Beside the Windowsill’, and included a number of nameless instrumentals between some of the regular songs that run the gamut from bluegrass to pre-country cowboy music. The remaining songs, including my favorite on the album ‘Emily, O, Emily’, have that sound you get with old 45s, where it sounds like the performer is at one end of the hall and the mic is set up on the other end. It initially occurred to me that if those classic artists from many years ago could re-record their music today without all the static and hissing and noise in a modern studio, they wouldn’t hesitate - so why purposely recreate a sound that was accidental and unwanted in the first place? But it is exactly these things that lend those classic recordings some of their charm, at least to me.

On the one hand, there’s nothing really original about The Boggs. For the most part, they are just recycling the sounds from the first part of the previous century for a new generation of listeners. But on the other hand, maybe this is just what many of us need. There is so much music out there today, and most of it is the same old shit, nothing really all that new or groundbreaking. The Boggs are no different, they’re just reaching back quite a bit farther for their influences, and in doing that, bringing something pretty new to a lot of people that might not otherwise be aware of this type of music.

I was torn as to what rating to give this album - like I said, nothing really new here, mostly rehashed sounds. That usually doesn’t bode well for getting a high review. But the bottom line is - I enjoy this album. And that is really what is most important, right? Hopefully The Boggs will continue making this kind of music, but perhaps with time they will develop their own stamp to put on the music and not have to lean so heavily from their influences.