Narrative Americana rock with enough gospel to fix that tent-revival itch.

12 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Americana, ROCK: Americana

Show all album songs: Bullets & Bones Songs


Details:
Brian Douglas Phillips spends his spare time in antique shops, shuffling through bins of old photographs. Some find their way to wall frames or bookshelves, while others rest safe in a cardboard box. Theyâre treasures to the Texas songsmith â theyâre inspiration.

And BULLETS & BONES is the direct result.

On his first full-length record, Phillips speaks for the anonymous faces in his collection, taking listeners on a journey through the heart of America to front porches, dim-lit bars and tent revivals. He paints portraits of guarded ramblers, estranged fathers, holy rollers and those paralyzed by the stasis of life. âThis one is all about narrative,â Phillips said. âI wanted to explore characters, scars and bruises from the past, in my family especially, and see how those things still resonate with us now. Some things time canât heal ⦠those are the things I chased on this record.â

Phillips arranges BULLETS & BONES meticulously, moving the listener through a series of landscapes and moods: some lush and dynamic, some lonesome â desolate. He treads lightly through delicate ballads and lullabies, saving the thunder-like percussion and heavy-handed piano for a brilliant few rock-n-roll moments. The record is a rich and diverse play on Americana â a little folk, a little twang, and enough gospel to keep it unique.

Weary of traditional studios, Phillips produced and engineered BULLETS & BONES independently with the help of his brother and a small number of friends. In the spring of 2007, they tracked and mixed in a handful of living rooms in College Station and Waco, Texas, with sessions often separated by weeks at a time. âThis was a long process,â Phillips said. âLonger than I had expected. But Iâm glad we took our time. Everything came out so organic and honest, and Iâm more at peace with this record than with anything Iâve done in the past.â

BULLETS & BONES makes great leaps thematically and stylistically from 2005âs The Storms Inside, though itâs not difficult to trace the path from one to the next. STORMSâ pensive self-awareness held hints of characterization, but now Phillips masters his roles, transforming himself into aged women and lonesome spirits. And STORMSâ cool ambience and country shuffle has given way to the rollick and soul of a mid-century backwoods church. Thereâs a sense of fiction to it, but itâs real and frightening all the same. The sparkle of BULLETS & BONES is in that warm distance, in the past-but-poignant stories it tells.

- January 2008