Crooked Fingers

Summer music is supposed to be light and frothy, but I don't like that kind of music in any season. My obsessions gravitate toward darkness, and let the therapists dissect my sodden corpse. It's August, and time for immersion in Crooked Fingers, the only go-to band I have that morons might call indie. Yes, Eric Bachmann led 90s darlings Archers of Loaf and is currently touring with them, but the band he's had for the last eleven years can't be pigeonholed by fat, lazy goateed asswipes. I'm sure musical categories drive Bachmann to the tormenting vices he's chronicled so eloquently, if his lyrics are to be believed. I have no idea what to call Crooked Fingers, other than that rare band that can move you in mid-morning and the intemperate wee hours. I don't know what you care about in music, but if melody, emotional content and lyricism still matter to anyone, you should at least put prejudices aside and give 'em a listen. Let me help, because with just five records out, I might get through each one without passing out on the keyboard.

Crooked Fingers- S/T- Bachmann started the band spare, and the first offering is almost suffocating in its relentless grimness. The lush instrumentation to come later ain't here, but the naked vulnerability of the lyrics coupled with the hauntingly beautiful melodies made just about everybody who heard this a lifelong fan. I could listen to "Broken Man" or "New Drink for the Old Drunk" or "A Little Bleeding" any time or anywhere, and I'd just have to stop and listen and feel. I'm not sure how many suicides he prevented or sent over the edge, but it's that kind of record.

Crooked Fingers- Bring on the Snakes- and more of the same for round two, how the obsessive devotees wanted it. "The Rotting Strip" opens the eight songs here, and it may be my favorite ever from Bachmann.  Ever had a failing relationship? "Blurry eyes half bent and I can't take you sober/ Tricking off the rotting strip that we've been trudging under/ We ducked into a dim lit room out where the river bends/ And turned to walk the burning bridge that we would build/ And crossed our hearts half hoping/ That we could both quit smoking/ And kick the booze and blow/ And one day go make something of ourselves." And later: "So we branded our hearts and we toasted the stars/ Getting wasted by the light of the moon/ You were a two-bit tramp and I was a low-life lying scam/ We were a bad lay coming undone burning for someone to use." No one gets off easily in these songs, the first-person narrator most of all. You don't have to feel like a complete fuck up and loser to immerse yourself in this album, but it fucking helps.

Crooked Fingers- Red Devil Dawn- the critics love this one more than the others, but I don’t. It’s fine for what it is, an attempt to flesh out the sound, broaden the scope of the tunes and produce more fully developed pop songs, which it does, but it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the next one, so let’s get to that.

Crooked Fingers- Dignity and Shame- for my money, this is Bachmann’s magnum opus. The mood has lightened, and the hooks are enormous. Apparently, this is supposed to be a concept album about some Spanish bullfighter’s doomed love affair, but that makes little difference. The greatness comes not from any tragic story, but from the songs, the wonderfully crafted and absurdly catchy tunes that come one after the next. While this might sound shiny and bright and sell-out to the studio apartment dwellers still clutching those first two records and their bottles of Peach Schnapps, terrified to jerk off for fear they no longer can, I’m calling masterpiece on this shit.

Crooked Fingers- Forfeit/Fortune- This is my least favorite of the five, even if a few tunes reach the high standards of previous efforts. I can’t even put my subjective critical ear-finger on the reason, other than that the songs don’t move or grab me the ways songs on other albums do. How is that for deep analysis?

Crooked Fingers will be releasing its sixth album in October, and I am excited. Or doomed. Or hopeful to have a new midnight friend. Or drunk. E?