专辑简介

Ah, the infamous stop-gap EP - you know the one to bridge the distance until the anticipated sophomore release? - it's always a tricky balance between the work the audience already knows and hints as to what the future record will hold. Bread of Teeth, the new EP from Philadelphia's Hezekiah Jones, serves this normally utilitarian function with all the sublime gracefulness we've all come to expect from him. Here, Hezekiah Jones deftly bridges the distance from his early work with the long-defunct Stillwillis (in the form of Iowa Alligator and Sorry Waltz, penned by former bandmate Matt Helm) and the fragile swing of his years-in-the-making full-length sophomore record (it's amazing - more on that next year!).

Iowa Alligator, long a concert staple of the band, appears here far transformed from its original version. Now appearing as a softly stomping country-flourished folk song instead of it's origins as a slow neo-reggae tune, it really showcases, for those that have been following Hezekiah Jones lead-man Raphael Cutrufello's evolution, the stunning growth and confidence that the band has developed over the past 4 years is remarkable, and nowhere more apparent than on this opening track.

That up-tempo opener is a bit of a red herring, though - more of a nod to the live show and history of the band - as the rest of the record delves much more deeply into an introspective, spacious tone. The creaky early-morning vocals on 'I Love My Family' and 'Traffic to the Sea' bring that sense of worldly weight and the gorgeous kind of bittersweet existentialism that's long been an undercurrent in his work to the fore. Both tracks are concerned with the inevitable loss and relentless entropy that our lives are bound to. It's not bleak and hopeless by any means, but there's a wisdom to it, a take-it-to-heart understanding that family, life and love are all so fleeting. Personally, I think 'Traffic to the Sea' is the best thing Cutrufello has written in the years I've known him.

The album closer, 'Sorry Waltz' (a piece usually performed by another Philadelphia band, The Matt Helm Scream) is given a amazing reinvention - awash in delayed percussion and chiming piano, Hezekiah Jones makes the song their own, with the chorus swell evoking the 'sigh of relief' that, after the pensive weight of the previous tracks, is really all left for the listener to do. Well, that, and to call and check in on their mother - those things precious to us are so easy to let slip away, and this brief flash of beauty underscores that more than any other musical work I've encountered.