Crooked Fingers - Dignity and Shame (Merge, 2005)

Crooked Fingers
Dignity and Shame
Merge
2005

Rating: 8 broken knuckles out of 10

I may not be the most unbiased person to review this CD, seeing as how the Archers of Loaf are my favorite band ever…ever! I get ecstatic every time I get a chance to see Eric Bachman play, and luckily that is fairly often since he tours quite a bit. Given that, it’s no wonder that I loved this newest output by his band Crooked Fingers, “Dignity and Shame”. If I were to put it in context with the other Crooked Fingers releases: this is just as good as “Bring on the Snakes”, Better than “Red Devil Dawn”, but not quite as good as their first self-titled album. That is to say, in the pantheon of Crooked Fingers releases, it’s damn good and measures up with the best, although it doesn’t quite surpass the high bar the first album set.

Like all previous efforts, the first and most important thing you get from the record is that Bachman’s terrific, deep voice and fabulous songwriting skills just seem to get better with age. Like the last album, this one finds the band foraying into different, unfamiliar territory - most notably, they are experimenting with mariachi. Bachman’s finger-picking guitar style is already of that nature, horns pepper a few songs, and the imagery of the CD sleeve features red faced matador glaring back at you. Another nice change is the addition of female vocals by an Australian lass named Lara Meyerattken, adding a nice extra dimension to the otherwise manly proceedings.