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If you've read this site's coverage of Slim Cessna's Auto Club over the past several years, you'll no doubt be aware that I love that band to the point that, were I seventeen years younger and a girl, I would be spending all of my time writing "Mrs. Brett Cessna" on my noteboooks and carving "BM + CS 4 EVER" on the old oak tree. To be fair, my abject love of this band is simply the strongest expression of my general love for modern takes on old-timey, wrath-of-the-Lord, bad-doin's-in-the-holler Americana.
Which is why David Chenery & The Lonesome Valley Singers are threatening to become an all-new love affair. From the opening wail of "Dead Birds", it's obvious that Chenery clearly attended the Jay Munly School of High-Throated, Vaguely Disconcerting Redneck Warbling, and graduated Summa Cum Laude. Moreover, the song is based on an insistent 6/8 guitar figure that's punctuated by a Civil War-style snare rat-a-tat and ringing bells. It's like Christmas, I tell you.
As it turns out, much of the rest of Memorial shies away from "Dead Birds"' sinister, implicit threat: tracks like "In The Morning" (which calls to mind Harry Nilsson's brilliant "Everybody's Talking At Me") and the gentle perfection of "Late September" recast the group as a tender, folky outfit highlighted by the interplay of Chenery's vocals and some beautiful female backing vox.
There are only eight tracks on Memorial, but each one is a highlight in its own way. The group's treatment of Hank Williams's "When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels" does the legend proud, and Chenery's rendition of the traditional "St. James Infirmary" is a powerful evocation of death and beauty.
Memorial's closer, "The Last Parade", brings back some of the feel of "Dead Birds", though this time that sound is recast in a major key, producing a lazy-day shuffle that screams springtime. As is the case throughout, Chenery's vocals sound just on the edge of cracking, which lends them a poignancy that's hard to describe, and the aforementioned vocal interplay never disappoints.
As near as I can tell, Memorial may be available only from the band's website, or from the group itself on tour. Take a listen to the sound clip and the boombox track; if you like those, rest assured that the rest of the album is just as good.
- Brett McCallon
- Splendid Zine
A time comes when aging punks pour whiskey over their wounds and cast off their chains. In such times it is a special breed that picks up the acoustic guitar and plays melodies haunted by tradition, to words written in the flames of their own lost youth. Victorian David Chenery is one such man — a Misfit fiend turned haggard crooner. Chenery has crossed the wild alt-country plains, with twangs of spiritual expansion and pangs of disillusionment in his dust. Chenery and his infernal quartet follow their initial release, Tonight I’ll Singing in the Devil’s Choir of 2003, with Memorial. Their latest is a further distillation of the sounds Chenery concocted with his former band the Moonshine Revellers. New influences are heard in echoes from the twisted accordian and the anguished jowls of fellow Victorian, David P. Smith, whose song “Sunday” the band covers. Notable ghosts include Hank Williams’ “When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels” and the traditional “St. James Infirmary.” Chenery imbues the haunting spectre of tradition with a beautifully sad and wandering soul, to which his original songs are equal testament. If you find yourself drawn towards the destitute, or simply see better in the dark, make your way to the Lonesome Valley and the tattered hymnal of David Cenery.
- Travis Richey
- Exclaim Magazine
New blood flows from the depths of the Victoria Country/roots hub of Victoria with the full release of David Chenery’s new album.
This is music to whistle along with while hitchhiking from the scene of your own horrific automobile accident while leaving a loved one behind. The album has a sense of emotion and mysticism rarely reached in the genre nowadays, with the exception of such bands as The Sadies or Petunia, the songs reach through a chronology of time tested musical folklore, from handshakes with the devil, to a surprisingly well pulled off spin on a Leadbelly classic. - BrandXMedia.ca
Discography
Tonight I'll Be Singing In The Devil's Choir - 2002
Memorial - 2004
Corpse Circus Revue - 2006
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Bio
David Chenery spent his formative years in the idyllic small town of Summerland, BC. It was more like a wasteland for Chenery. His teens were occupied by drinking like a divorced fifty-year-old mechanic, vandalizing public property (inflicting as much damage as possible upon a landscape of fruit trees and ma 'n' pop shops) and immersing himself in music. He loved 70s punk, 60s pop and the strange sounds of contemporary weirdos like Good Horsey, The Pixies, Tom Waits and Mark Szabo. He also harboured a secret love for a certain syllphic country balladeer: Loretta's little sister, Crystal Gayle.
Until David moved to Victoria in 1999, he was not a big fan of country music. He associated it, as many do, with the craptastic "new country" sludge of Garth Brooks, Reba MacIntyre and the horrible, horrible Shania Twain. It was during a stint at film school that Chenery was introduced to the Carter Family, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Gram Parsons, and his songwriting changed... forever. Though he was still focused on dark melodies that chronicled visions of death and decay, his delivery became softer as he experimented with combining old-time country/folk sensibilities with the dramatic underpinnings of punk rock, cabaret and folk noir.
David enlisted the help of Mr. Martin Courchaine (Sensitones, Mondegreens) to step in on drums. Martin was famous for making a single high-hat and snare sound like a symphony of high-hats and snares. His sparse style fit perfectly with Chenery's increasingly sinister songwriting. Next came Kelly Klassen (Noone Else, The Gong Show). Kelly, "The Farmer" yanked bass notes out of Chenery's songs like so many weeds, creating bizarrely romantic melodies that stayed just below the surface, highlighting the despair/agony/heartbreak/anxiety of the songs. Jana McLaughlin joined The Singers shortly thereafter. David first knew her as Kelly's concubine, but begged her to join when he learned that she could play the banjo like a coke-crazed bitch. Finally, chanteuse Chelsea Wakelyn joined the troupe as a back-up vocalist and glochenspiel player.
The "new" Lonesome Valley Singers recorded an EP in 2004. 'Memorial' was immediately embraced by all weirdos, sad-sacks, freaks and bloated, broke-down, lonely booze-hounds.
The Singers will be touring soon in a town near you, before and after the apocalypse.
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