The Steel Wheels – Sideways
The Steel Wheels 2021 release Over the Trees was a rhythm based, primal experience. They’ve followed up now with their new album Sideways, which, as it turns out, is a little more introspective soul-searching song-based than Over the Trees. But the depth of complexity and the significance of the arrangement and the catchy, innovative rhythms remain.
Musically, “Wait On You” exhibits restraint in the opening measures, with instruments coming in gradually. Fiddle skips in and out, suspense rises and falls. “Baby Gone” is a bluegrassy grooving jam, the kind to get your heart racing and get you on your feet to dance, and the fiddle becomes involved in the rhythmic back and forth, the drums in a syncopation complexity.
The title track, “Sideways,” is a gently sung, deeply, introspective story “give me a live without the makeup, I’m gonna be exactly what you see. What will I do without the mask on?” with picked banjo and sustained fiddle melodies before the electric guitars open up halfway through. “Hero” mixes up the rhythms further, with an almost reggae feel and ambient vocals. “I thought I was the hero.”
“Enemy” launches with strings and occasional pops and snaps of rhythms. “I sleep in the basement, dark often and early, walking into the wind now to clear my mind, try not to worry. You could still be .. my enemy.” Introspection, low end strings, and the feel of a dreary time in a dark space is fully evoked. “Dissidents” brings on the suspense again, low, dark, and you’re pulled into the fiddle, banjo and mandolin dance in slow motion as it unfolds. A dark, earnest instrumental delight.
12 solid songwriter’s songs. These folks are the real deal, and they put on a hell of a live show too.
Musicians on the album are Trent Wagler on vocals, guitar, and banjo; Jay Lapp on guitar, mandolin, and vocals; Eric Brubaker on fiddle and vocals; Kevin Garcia on drums, percussion, and mallet keyboards; Jeremy Darrow on bass; and additional keyboards by Sam Kassirer.
Find the music here: https://thesteelwheels.bandcamp.com/album/sideways
Enjoy our previous coverage here: REVIEW: The Steel Wheels’ “Over the Trees” is Primary Rhythms and Organic Melodies
Sideways was produced, recorded, and mixed by Sam Kassirer at Great North Sound Society in Parsonsfield, Maine, with additional engineering by Colin Fleming. It was mastered by Dan Cardinal Dimension Sound Studio in Boston.