Ten Thousand (2008)
14 tracks, 44 minutes
Bandcamp · Spotify · iTunes
This blog is already coming up trumps – I know I love this album, but it must be about seven or eight years since I’ve given it a listen. Now I get to love it all over again!
The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir are not what they tell you they are – they’re actually a quartet from Calgary whose style feels like it’s dredged up from the time when there was no difference between country music and the blues. I’m not sure about their religious beliefs though, so there is that. But what’s in a name?
There’s a lot of twanging going on on this one. The sound is centred around the combination of banjo and acoustic guitar and everything fits in around those: the double bass is flabby in exactly the right way, the kick drum is very loose and boomy while the rest of the drum kit is bolstered by what sounds like the contents of a kitchen. It all suits the gruff voice of Judd Palmer and the high-n-scratchy voice of Bob Keelaghan to a T. Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits are immediate frames of reference, and in fact, they are mentioned in basically every review of them – so much so that the comparison seems dull, not to mention reductive. There’s much less of the jazz or rock here, but there are bluegrass, zydeco and even Tuareg influences. The cartoon of Son House on the cover lets you know what to expect – it’s not pretty, but it’ll get you stomping.
This album is crammed with great tracks, and catchy ones too. ‘Nehemiah’s Misfortune,’ ‘Life is Wrong,’ ‘Dumb It Down,’ the Son House-penned title track ’10,000 Years’ and the insightful opener ‘Go Back Home’ (spoiler: you can’t do that. Thomas Wolfe, innit) will all get you hollering along with the choruses even before they’ve drawn to a close.
Ten Thousand came at the perfect time in the UK. 2008 was in the middle of a bit of a blues boom, with listeners rejecting ultra-polished blues-rock for a grittier sound that looked back at its earlier roots to meld with modern sensibilities. It was the same sort of time that brought popularity to Seasick Steve, Son of Dave and C.W. Stoneking, and the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir fit well in that scene. It’s a shame that this album turned out to be the last of their three. The group did a couple of UK tours but eventually went on their separate ways, onto puppet theatres and film soundtracks. But then, three great albums (such as AMGC have) is a good run, and don’t they always say to quit while you’re ahead? They didn’t release any duffers this way, and we still have a load of great music of theirs to enjoy – and to rediscover after all this time! Still, if they ever decided to reform and do more tours over here, I would not say no…
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