Music Monday: Reigning Sound Slows Down for Love and Curses

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Reigning Sound
Love and Curses
In the Red

After backing Shangri-Las singer Mary Weiss on her 2007 comeback album on Norton Records, Reigning Sound is back with a new album of its own. It’s the band’s fourth studio album since 2001, and the relaxed, Southernly pace of their output matches the overall air of Love and Curses.

Frontman Greg Cartwright cut his teeth in the stalwart Memphis garage band the Oblivians. Twenty years on, his approach to music has evolved from taking old country, blues, and R&B numbers, blowing them to bits, and burying them in distortion to loving, nurturing them, and letting them breath. This applies to the numerous obscure ’60s and ’70s covers in the Reigning Sound oeuvre, as well as their own sweet tea-and-slaw songs.

Love and Curses shows Reigning Sound slowing down a bit. Like a good BBQ, slow-cooking (it’s their first new album in four years) until the songs fall off the bones, so to speak. With a wispy organ and lush layering of instruments, and drawing from a fertile knowledge of classic soul, R&B, country, blues, and pop sounds of the ’60s, the band delivers 14 songs that fill you up, but leave you coming back for more. You get plenty of heartache, and still plenty of Cartwright’s signature vocals—raspy hurting delivered in a plain and plaintive, almost pleading way.

You might call this album something like contemporary adult garage rock, and I don’t mean that as derogatorily as it might sound. More simply, garage rock for adults. It’s a perfect fit for those who’ve maybe mellowed a bit since their young days as a feisty punk or garage rock fiend. Or, for those who can still tear into a raw Gories or Black Flag song but sometimes like to slow things down, this has enough bite to keep your heart beating, without being a total washout like so much milquetoast music out there.

On a side note, Reigning Sound’s first album, Break Up Break Down, released on Sympathy for the Record Industry and immediately withdrawn due to the band’s concerns over its sound, has surfaced again, along with the long out-of-print early Oblivians 10-inch records, also on Sympathy. All are essential.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate