The Minstrels

The Minstrels’ Jeff Curtin apparently has a thing for wounded bodies: the cover of his group’s debut album, Our Cruel Demise depicts a wounded man bandaged to the point of mummification, while his songs speak of immersing oneself in boiling water, being gutted, and gnawing upon a raw heart. It’s bleak stuff, and perhaps sounds rather extreme on paper, but Curtin turns such squalid subject matter into surprisingly compelling goth-folk.
Curtin and bandmates Lauren Bohrer (accordion and saw) and Rob Grenier (electric guitar) build their songs off a core of acoustic instrumentation, often augmented by somber synths and drenched in heavy sheets of reverb. A dark, brooding atmosphere pervades Our Cruel Demise: the more forceful tracks sometimes evoke the Black Heart Procession, while the gentler acoustic ones suggest the ghostly folk of Marissa Nadler. The lyrics, aside from those about dismemberment, take a similar tone, and are equal parts gothic imagery (queens, castles, and candles) and pained romanticism.
While the occasional droning goth bombast (“Spider Me Well”) is effective enough, the subtle acoustic tracks are the most impressive here, coupling simple, somewhat naïve melodies with devastatingly bleak lyrics: “Melt Into the Bed” must be the prettiest song ever written about how old people should just give up and die (“You’re sure that all the ones you love have begun to want you dead”), while the title track draws upon fairy-tale tropes to convey romantic angst (“You capture boys, you drain them in your web”). Curtin’s voice is particularly suited to delivering such messages: in his lower register he sounds unsure, agonized and somewhat sinister, while in his high range he bears a strong resemblance to Wayne Coyne undergoing torture (not necessarily a bad thing).
The Minstrels’ “darkness,” overwrought as it may seem, owes its impact to a rare directness and sincerity. The eerie atmosphere of Our Cruel Demise, while conjured with rather stock tools (a warbling saw, deep reverb, and anguished vocals), is free of the theatricality and “cleverness” one might expect (think The Decemberists). There is no irony here, and more importantly, the band finds a sound that successfully avoids the pitfalls of outworn signals (i.e., using clichéd tactics to create a desired mood) and contrived sentiment. Curtin’s conviction is clear, and allows his music, bleak as it may be, to be taken seriously.

By Michael Cramer
- Dusted Magazine (www.dustedmagazine.com)

THE MINSTRELS - OUR CRUEL DEMISE- Klem North Records
By Mick Mercer 1-13-07

I’d like you to imagine The Pogues if they were ever sober, singing For Auld Lang Syne, their hands covered in blood through carrying the severed heads of relatives. That’s the sort of sound we have here. While in Mysssouri and Those Poor Bastards we have seen Dark Country themes handled with beauty, hilarity and horrible, bleak reality, now we find some dark folk territory brought to life without the amateurish bilge of neo folk, or the horrible cloying sentimental twaddle of traditional folk. Dark Folk is, after all, the closest natural territory to murder ballads and when The Minstrels do it with clarity it’s fantastic.

‘Dove Into My Heart’ is beautiful acoustic and steady, deft drums with comfortably hazy vocals, and as a musical piece it’s a softly enticing opener putting you at your ease that this isn’t anything embarrassing. They then twist their hold on you with ‘A Knife I Can’t Wait To Hold’ which trickles along meaningfully and rubs its gritty chorus in your face. ‘Our Cruel Demise’ also drifts pleasantly masking a relationship bound in deceit and sadness.

‘Her Heart The Queen’ comes over as half way between Damien Youth and Al Stewart, ghostly saw fluttering, strings harmoniously twittering and the thumpety-tum drums actually hide the vocals, because the production isn’t always clear enough, which also afflicts the twinkly, puny ‘My Thoughts Have Gone Through The Ceiling’ that sounds pretty trad and suffers accordingly.

‘The Garden Is Gone’ manages to hover and seethe, wielding horrible emotional pains, ‘Spider Me Well’ is creepier, with murky musical spirals and disturbing imagery and then ‘The Parting Glass’ pounces and pounds with a doomier atmosphere and almost demented singing. ‘Flowers For Your Heart’ seems positively comforting, a moribund lullaby, and the depressing finality of ‘Melt Into The Bed’ paints a gruesomely honest picture of death coming on and offers sensible, trim advice, no matter how morbid.

A curious album, this, but a truly fine debut. They have a direction to follow which will yield great things and all they really need to do is achieve a better sound so we can hear what needs to be heard.
- Mick Mercer

Maximum atmosphere for maximum thrift is the name of the game on the captivating new full-length from this acoustic guitar-driven trio. The album opens with something that sounds like a ghostly loon call that’s distant and quiet enough you nearly miss it. From there, nothing seems heavy-handed or over-emphasized. On the same song, for example, a simple snare beat is expertly played (and alternately left out) to escalate the urgency around a central arpeggio-and-vocal motif. It’s the first of many examples of the way the band casts foreboding in restraint for delightfully tense results. But you have to be paying attention: many of the accompanying instruments --- light percussion, vocals processed to sound otherworldly, musical saw, accordion --- come together in a sonic field that’s inspiringly blended from a production-values standpoint. If you’re goaded into missing the subtle menace in lines like “I’ll be the only existing man left for you to call,” it’s because the Minstrels have hands as supple as they are skilled.
--- Saby Reyes-Kulkarni
Rochester City Newspaper, 8-30-06
- Rochester City Newspaper

In a town where I once lived there was a regular busker who was a little different. Instead of the usual Coldplay covers he sat on a crate with a carpenter's saw between his legs. Then with the use of a violin bow he could coax out a quivering melody that would swoop ad hover up and down the street. To avoid any mishaps he wore heavy black workman's gloves. I can't help going back to this image when playing this CD. Not only because it has a saw featured on it but there was something about those gloves....
I don't know what it's like around Rochester, New York but The Minstrels have dedicated themselves to using the back roads since 1998. Nothing's particularly well lit in this world and the outlook is bleak. Kind of like being stuck on the set of The Wicker Man with only Nick Cave and a copy of the Old Testament for company. Hopes aren't raised by the picture on the cover of the poor chap swathed in bandages.
Each song on 'Our Cruel Demise' their debut commences with a smattering of notes which then form little whirlpools of momentum. We're then guided through these sinister landscapes by harpsichord like guitar passages, accordion, keyboards, percussion more suited to a slave galleon and the dreaded saw. The riffs have crossed the Atlantic so many times you'd be hard pressed to pin down their origins but they match the macabre mood just fine.
Jeff Curtin, The Minstrels principal songwriter, possess a singular talent. Anyone finding lyrics for these dusky ditties must have. Delivered in a rich baritone queens are ensconced in castles on 'Her Heart The Queen.' Arachnophobes best beware on 'Spider Me Well.' Then to top it all off amongst the mayhem on 'My thoughts have gone through the ceiling' we're informed 'skin will peel away, skins will melt away.'
Not pysch, not wyrd. Nu-Medieval? Who knows. If a little overwrought at times The Minstrels can be forgiven as they've discovered a land where emotional exhaustion is a fundamental requirement.
Dave Kushar
- Spiral Earth Music Pages (www.spiralearth.co.uk)

THE MINSTRELS – our cruel demise (CD, klem north records)
“Dove into my heart, trailed me from the start” sings Jeff Curtin, main songwriter of The Minstrels, over two picked, echoy acoustic guitars before the drums set in with the same stubborn strength that makes the rhythms of Godspeed! You Black Emperor so breathtaking. At the same point, only one minute of acoustic guitar picking into the song, female backup vocals haunt the track eerily and after the second verse a layer of swishing noise drones the song into new musical territory. And the one listening with open ears knows that something is happening; or has already happened and the after effects are still lingering on. Something dark and sinister, like a murder comitted because of lost or broken love. Acts of desperateness, souls as dark as the woods at night and as dangerous as the mountains in winter.
“How can I call you a sinner, when we share our desires? How can I call you a liar, when I told so many lies to you?” asks Curtin on “A knife I can’t wait to hold”. And these are the sentiments the whole record carries. Thematically as close to William Elliott Whitmore as they apart musically, even if they share the same musical root. Only that The Minstrels have infused their crop of traditional folk music with a pop understanding that is one part indie rock, one part gothic and one part gospel music. And they keep a stern eye on all their influences, and seem to be always open for more, and after all the atmosphere or texture of the songs is just as important than the melody. In other words, they polish their style with the same almost academical abundance as The Decemberists (sharing the narrative balladry with them as well). Accordion, singing saw, black hearts and all.
When Jeff Curtin sings he stresses single words to focus on them, such as “cell”, “moon” or “frost”. The songs usually start with picked chords on the acoustic guitar, which might give a hint at how they were written. And what Jeff Curtin likes to concentrate on in his spare time. Thoughts that seem to circle around death, betrayal and the general dark sides of love. From this beginning the songs might turn towards bombast as can be produced by a honest three piece. Or they might turn towards a more spread out and noisier structure, like “The garden is gone” where Curtin croons like Wayne Coyne or Pall Jenkins and electric guitars lay down a distorted web of haunting noise. Behold, though, there is near no irony in here. Where the Decemberists like to dress up and dramatize the existential dilemmas the proponents of their takes have been hurled into (by them, it should be added) and thereby create a comfortable distance between the singer and the song, The Minstrels bare themselves to the bone and stand up on stage in naked honesty, emphasizing fully with their protagonists. They don’t act all the insecurity and despair but seem to at least method act them.
Yes, a record as pessimistic and dark as can be and nevertheless rapturously infused with a certain beauty. Not the trashy fascination with tales or pictures of gore, but rather an infatuation with situations of desperation and heartbreaking fates. The history of such songs is long and winding, and amongst traditional diamonds like “Long Black Veil” or probably two thirds of Tim Hardin’s songwriting, The Minstrels will also find their place as a modern classic in a completely old fashioned genre, that will never lose its fascination as long as people like to listen to tales of other people’s bad lives. Bleak but also utterly human and necessary like stupid jokes. I’ll be staring out the window while listening to “Melt into the bed” and reminisce about how having to die when you are old is not a nice thing to have to experience, but also a lot better than a lot of other things that can happen to you. The idea of dying in your sleep has never been suggested as beautiful as in this song.
- Monochrom - Cracked Reviews www.monochrom.at/cracked/reviews