Ah, how we love a good murder ballad!

This weekend we visited our local independent record shop (the excellent Rapture in Witney) for the annual Record Store Day extravaganza. As well as picking up the latest Chapel Club 7″ and a copy of the limited edition 4AD taster for the latest Big Pink track we couldn’t help but purchase unheard a copy of a CD by Jeffrey Foucault & Mark Erelli just because of the album title, Seven Curses – A Killer Selection of Americana Murder Ballads.

And the cover. Just look at it. Wonderful.

Anyway, according to the write-ups and the reviews, “Foucault and Erelli have teamed up on this covers album and the result is by turns rollicking and chilling, raw and poignant, a timeless interpretation of a classic American genre. The duo execute uncanny harmony arrangements with a list of songs that decidedly expands the genre: Blackie Farrell’s dusty cowboy ballad Sonora’s Death Row brushes shoulders with Neil Young’s mystical narrative Powderfinger; Porter Wagoner’s darkly comic The First Mrs. Jones makes a stark contrast to the bleak beauty of Paul Siebel’s Louise. Jaunty and doomed, the characters in these songs inhabit a world where everything hinges on a single irretrievable act, and a reckoning looms.”

Couldn’t have put it better ourselves (obviously). Marvellous stuff.

Order from Amazon here.

Download Jeffrey Foucault & Mark Erelli – Tom Merritt mp3 (from Seven Curses)