This week my song comes from Montreal, Quebec. The band is United Steel Workers of Montreal and they are another in the wave of Tom Waits inspired alt-rockers that so capture my heart.
The gravelly-voiced Gern f fronts the band, with the help of a female accompaniast who actually doesn't feature too heavily in this song, so she is irrelevent right now. The band is a mix of irony and sincerity that is familiar in the indie world. Where a few years ago a band whose songs primarily deal with the steel industry and which features prominently both the mandolin and the banjo (not to mention an accordian) would have been amazing despite it's ironic subject matter, it's absolutely and uncompromisingly awesome these days. There is something to be said for antiquity and in that vein USWM does a fine job of crafting songs that remind us of a time gone by without actually resembling the period. They're little musical essays about the past.
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