Creekbed Carter Hogan -- Peasant's Revolt
Creekbed Carter gives us one of the most important albums of the year with Peasant's Revolt, a winding exploration of the self, oppression, history, and the balm for all of it: hot dogs.
Let's just start with the final verdict: Creekbed Carter Hogan has given us one of the most important albums of the year with Peasant's Revolt.
The album is heady with literary and historical references that will take many listens to unpack – and that's a good thing. After all, we have been fighting against the oppression of the many by the few for a very, very long time and Hogan illustrates that by threading these struggles from medieval times to the Haitian Revolution to the ICE occupation of Hogan's recently-adopted hometown of Minneapolis.
Hogan deftly weaves the personal and political on these intricate songs. The album sets the stage with a hot dog stand as a brief reprieve from the apocalyptic forces gathering against us all, a reminder that we can't take the little things in life (especially processed meats) for granted. In spite of everything, there's always joy in the hot dog stand. As the album kicks off with "Cutbank of Cleaves," an intriguing ballad that transports us to another time and place, we realize that we've been draw into an adventure only Hogan could anticipate – and guide us through.
There are songs of anger, self-doubt, shame – a feeling of powerlessness brought on not just by systemic oppression, but the leavetakings and uncertainty in the future they cause. "Icarus Again" is jaunty, off-kilter folk rock that will appeal to Ryan Davis fans – as Hogan's voice hitches through the words, they create a sense of precarity, but also a homey intimacy – even as the narrator questions the risks they've taken.
By contrast, "Mirrors" is an achingly vulnerable and tender reflection on dysphoria, song as a duet with Jude Brothers. The complex interplay between the two singers can only come from trust in each other and years of creating together.
As Peasants Revolt wend its way to the title track – a pastoral masterpiece that feels more like a suite then a humble folk song – we find that Hogan is taking us on a spiraling journey, where the self and the larger world meet, intersect, and depart. "Peasants Revolt" leaves us contemplating the history of struggle, the future, and the "common thread" that keeps us all going:
They leave you for dead, friend, they leave you for dead /Our agonies ancient, a common thread /They leave you for dead, friend, they leave you for dead /Our agonies rising on the hill ahead /O but Heaven is a place on earth!
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