Eric Bachmann - To The Races (Saddle Creek, 2006)

Eric Bachmann
To The Races
Saddle Creek
2006

Rating: 8 thoroughbred fillies out of 10

This is an album of changes…an album where Eric Bachmann dropped the Crooked Fingers band name and elected to record under his own moniker. Actually, he has actually done this one other time, recording the film score for “Ball of Wax” - but that material was much closer to his mid-90s side project Barry Black than what he has been putting out as Crooked Fingers over the last few years. It was also a change in record labels, moving his outfit from Merge Records over to the “Connor Oberst & family” stable of Saddle Creek. But musically…the changes are minimal at best. This album is a little sparser than the last few – many of the tracks here are just the man himself strumming and singing, and then occasionally a cello or violin or some backing female vocals will get inserted into the tracks. And these changes are perfectly fine with me – the major selling points of anything Bachmann is involved with is his strong songwriting and his Neil Diamond-like vocals – everything else is just a bonus. The songs contained in “To the Races” are as strong as anything he has put out to date: “Carrboro Woman” and “So Long Savannah” will be instant favorites to most anyone who gives this a listen. If I had to lodge a complaint at all, it would be that the album is just too damn short - at around 35 minutes long, it feels like it is over before it really gets going. Still, any fan of Bachmann’s output these last few years under the name Crooked Fingers would be a fool not to rush out and get this album, a high contender for one of my favorites of the year.