It’s amazing really, but just when you think you’ve heard all the credible permutations ‘Americana’ can throw at you, the seemingly endless creativity of the U.S Midwest strikes again.
So, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for superb Illinois trio BACKYARD TIRE FIRE: a curious name perhaps, but nonetheless a fantastic trio led by singer/ songwriter Ed Anderson, plus bassist brother Matt and drummer Tim Kramp. This tight outfit (Anderson also plays guitars, piano and a variety of keyboard instruments) are admirably augmented by some extremely talented friends such as the immortally-named and supremely-gifted Jerry ‘Muttonhead’ Erickson on pedal steel and with “Bar Room Semantics” they have put together a fabulous, blue-collar roots-rock album that resonates with the best of them.
The band’s Illinois base perhaps inevitably throws up comparisons with some of the state’s other pioneering roots-rock sons, not least Uncle Tupelo/ Wilco and at times Anderson’s grainy and yearning vocals recall Jeff Tweedy (songs like the stupidly catchy “The Daze” with its’ cheesy, Jay Bennett-style synth and the funky strut of “Ready To Go” are hardly a million miles away from Wilco’s sound circa “Being There”) while in places the likes of Drive-By Truckers and even Grandaddy spring favourably to mind. Ultimately, though, BTF have got plenty going on and in Anderson’s well-observed songs they display a wit, poignancy and world-weariness that’s both seriously attractive and very much of their own making.
Mood-wise, the album runs the gamut from downhome and gentle – represented by the languid, piano-led opener “A Better Day” and “Believe” where Ed’s brittle, nicotined voice is supported by gamely-plucked banjo – through to self-explanatory, weathered’n’torn bar-room rockers like “Tryin’ To Get Paid” and the preening “Ready To Go” but there are a whole lot of diversions here to keep all discerning listeners riveted from start to finish.
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To this end, take tunes as disparate as “The White On My Walls”, “Thick Skin” and “31st Fall” into account. The first is unexpectedly cute, funky and soulful with neat, Booker T-style organ and a real lightness of touch; “Thick Skin” is equally playful: a smokin’, ‘50s-style rocker with Scotty Moore-esque lead guitar breaks and percussive harmonica from the Little Walter school. “31st Fall”, meanwhile, shows how adept BTF are at making sloppy sound utterly vital. The drums and bass yawn into life and introduce a gritty, blasted rock-blues (“shouldn’t smoke, shouldn’t joke about the fact I’m bitter and broke”) which sounds like it was recorded at half-speed, but the fuzzy atmosphere suits them perfectly, as does Anderson’s strangled, Crazy Horse guitar burst.
If push came to shove, this reviewer would probably choose the plaintive “Up & Down” as his favourite track, simply because it’s so naked and vulnerable and finds the band in fine, restrained form as Anderson opens his heart and admits “I write about what I feel, ‘cause I guess it makes things real/ and it helps to heal the wounds that cut deep”, but really “Bar Room Semantics” hits you in the heart and gut all the way down the line. It’s the sort of record that will bring obsessive attention from the discerning out there and once again proves emphatically that the Mid-west has some way to go yet before the sponge has been wrung out on poor old saturated Americana.
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