Haunted Like Human - American Mythology
Haunted Like Human touch on American mythologies and improve them -- or tear them down -- in an album that Bee Delores proves that "everything they touch turns to gold."
Everything Haunted Like Human touches turns to gold (to borrow a lyric from their song "Appaloosa.") Their third studio record, American Mythology, releasing November 21, quakes with a timeless tremor that echoes throughout every single song. Its rustic feeling pulls you in, with plenty of strings, percussion, and oh so smooth harmony work. It's the kind of record that defines careers and catapults artists into the stratosphere.
From the very first breathy vocal line of "Eurydice," a totally a cappella moment, Dale Chapman and Cody Clark open up their world and invite the listener inside. Their voices are feathery and light but also sturdy as a row of towering redwoods. The melody sets the stage for an album bathed in poetry. The pastoral patchwork pulses alive a collection of stories, seemingly ripped from an Oscar Wilde novel. It doesn't take long into the album for listeners to understand that Haunted Like Human simply exists on another plane of creativity.
From the album's weeping willow yearning to passages that feel so real, you get the sense that the music emerges from another time and place. Chapman's background in fiction might be the culprit - "that really started us down the path of centering storytelling," they share in a press statement. "It’s what I know and instinctually reach for, and we’ve found a way to make that a cornerstone of what we do."
"Hangman's Song" is a particularly wicked moment. A darkness seeps into the crevices of swampy drums, strings, and a somber rainstick that seem to cry underneath the duo's eerie harmonies. "They say his daddy was a man without a name / The kind who's known for skipping town on the very last train," the lyrics swirl in your head, sprouting gnarled roots. "He'll be running till he's dead and gone / That's the kind of ugly habit that you pass along."
"Growing Pains" unpacks a similar silky smoke that unfurls with every hushed whisper. "Call up a war just to declare yourself a hero / Ensure your children always hear your righteous cry," the duo sings, firing off a warning shot against the current state of affairs in the United States. Chapman and Clark cut "Lazarus," "Cassandra," and "Liars" from a similar musical cloth - an essential thread keeping the album connected.
Naturally, they alleviate the pressure with many brighter spots, such as "Meet Me in Memphis." Then, there are acoustic guitar-driven essentials like "Married in Savannah" and "Kingston Pike" to further illuminate the album's marvelous and "delicate balance," to borrow another lyric from "High Wire." The musicians and songwriters walk that tightrope the full length of the album - adeptly carving out one of the best folk albums of the modern age.
Haunted Like Human's American Mythology holds up a mirror to today ("Plastic Jesus" is as cutting as you can get). Through its piercing limericks about human existence in all its shades, from downtrodden tumbleweeds to love-strewn epics, the record arrives at a time when everything feels so hopeless. It's within their art that you can discover slivers of hope that can reignite the thirst for living.
