Album Review: The Henry Clay People – For Cheap or for Free

By Travis Woods

Release Date: 11.4.08

Label: Autumn Tone

With it’s footstomping gee-tar anthems and wistful golden streaks of pedal steel throughout, the Henry Clay People’s second LP, For Cheap or for Free, is an alternately witty and ferocious, touching and rebellious record, a song-cycle of twenty-something ennui set to crackling and electric music just as likely to encourage surging blood-alcohol limits as the lyrics do a smirking introspection that never takes itself too seriously.

Unlike their solidly catchy and thoroughly indie’s debut, Blacklist the Kid with the Red Moustache, the People’s new record jumbles, blurs and builds upon its influences—a vivid cross-section that acknowledges a mindset where Tonight’s the Night, The River, GP and Grievous Angel, Tim, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, or any record produced by Glynn or Andy Johns all share shelf space—so much so that while the styles may sound/feel familiar, the results they produce add up to one of 2008’s most enjoyable (and simply fun) late night rock ‘n roll records. You might be able to hear where the Henry Clay People are coming from, but the viscerally freewheeling music forces you to be more compelled by where they’re going—they haven’t reinvented the wheel, they’ve just started rolling it in a new and exciting direction.

Opening with the driving sting of “Something in the Water,” before moving to the swaggering country-rock of “Living in Debt” and the sprawling, biting rock-country of “This Ain’t a Scene,” the record (and the band) doesn’t so much leapfrog genres as it collapses them into one another while singer/guitarist Joey Siara spews, spits and chuckles lyrics about being any number of marginalized groups (a debt-ridden college grad, an American band without skintight jeans that listened to Born to Run before Neon Bible) in the strange new sequel to the American Century.

And while the record occasionally admits to a generational fatigue—the gorgeous, simply gorgeous, strum and hum of bassist Noah Green’s “Bulls Through,” the coulda-been-on-Side-Two-of-Exile on Main Street offhand shuffle of “I Was Half Asleep”—the Henry Clay People never succumb to it; with songs like the buzzsaw churn of “Fine Print” and “Andy Sings!”’s punk-gnarled twists along with the monolithically anthemic singalongs of the windmilling “Working Part Time” and the wistful surge of “You Can Be Timeless,” the band offers one fiery and ramshackle rebuttal after another to any notion of surrender, and they do so seemingly without breaking a sweat. Their music will, however, break your speakers at the proper volume, leaving you even more in probable debt, and yet twice as thankful.

Stream “You Can Be Timeless“

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

November 4, 2008 | Filed Under Album Reviews, Exclusive Features 

Comments

One Response to “Album Review: The Henry Clay People – For Cheap or for Free”

  1. Club Spaceland » Thursday 12.31.09: THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE / LE SWITCH / THE MONOLATORS on November 16th, 2009 7:05 pm

    [...] With it’s footstomping gee-tar anthems and wistful golden streaks of pedal steel throughout, the Henry Clay People’s second LP, For Cheap or for Free, is an alternately witty and ferocious, touching and rebellious record, a song-cycle of twenty-something ennui set to crackling and electric music just as likely to encourage surging blood-alcohol limits as the lyrics do a smirking introspection that never takes itself too seriously. Unlike their solidly catchy and thoroughly indie’s debut, Blacklist the Kid with the Red Moustache, the People’s new record jumbles, blurs and builds upon its influences—a vivid cross-section that acknowledges a mindset where Tonight’s the Night, The River, GP and Grievous Angel, Tim, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, or any record produced by Glynn or Andy Johns all share shelf space—so much so that while the styles may sound/feel familiar, the results they produce add up to one of 2008’s most enjoyable (and simply fun) late night rock ‘n roll records. You might be able to hear where the Henry Clay People are coming from, but the viscerally freewheeling music forces you to be more compelled by where they’re going—they haven’t reinvented the wheel, they’ve just started rolling it in a new and exciting direction. – Web In Front [...]




If there's something inside that you wanna say...