Given the way such trends usually go, in five years or so virtual recycle bins and maybe even literal used CD bins will be overstocked with albums from the Early 2010s Folk Revival. Mumford & Sons, the Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men…will any of them still have vital careers, or will they be doing the secondary stages at the State Fair?
It’s curious that Chesapeake, Virginia septet The Last Bison have not yet made that shortlist. If you get the impression they have ridden the coattails of the fleeting folk-pop trend, their story is nothing if not authentic. They are led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Ben Hardesty. His father and sister are also in the band, which also features another set of siblings, Andrew and Jay Benfante. The band’s appearance is decidedly antebellum American, an impression which is further cultivated by the colonial images that adorn their album art.
This is all part of a happenstance that placed The Last Bison in the proverbial right place at the right time. Their do-it-yourself debut, Quill, was released under the band name Bison in late 2011 to some acclaim. They were ripe to be snatched up by a major label, and Universal Republic stepped in. Hooked up with a proper producer, Kevin Augunas (Cold War Kids, Joshua Radin), name changed to The Last Bison to avoid legal hassles, they issued the excellent Inheritance EP in late 2012. Inheritance the album reprises the entire EP and is rounded out by a mixture of new songs and re-recordings of Quill tracks.
If the EP left the distinct impression that four Last Bison songs was not enough, the album suggests that maybe eleven is a bit more than you might want in one sitting. Hardesty’s wide-eyed, heartfelt songs and traditional instruments such as fiddle, banjo, and bodhrán have a timeless feel. The airy, bucolic feel often gives the impression these songs were recorded across the Atlantic, in a quiet Celtic village amid rolling hills and steep cliffs. What really sets The Last Bison apart from their folky contemporaries, though, is Hardesty’s voice. Guttural, gravelly, and emphatic, it alternates between a pensive growl and an exuberant rallying cry. On standout tracks such as the sparkling, triumphant “Switzerland” and the ebbing-and-flowing “Distance”, it works wonders, drawing you into Hardesty’s bygone world with sheer emotion and energy.
Likewise, Hardesty invests more pensive tracks with a genuine sense of wonder and bewilderment. “Dark Am I” seems to address a time of conflict or war, “When men rise up like birds / And all their songs grow faint”. On “River Rhine”, a song that sounds uncannily like Fleet Foxes but is beautiful nonetheless, Hardesty longs for the very sense of peace and reflection the music provides: “Oh for you to be / With your blood kin and me / As the floors crack beneath / An embrace unforeseen”. Even the words and syntax, with references to bell towers and scribes, hearken back to a time long before music was played from digital files, much less recorded at all.
And, yes, after a time it does begin to feel a bit corny, heartfelt as it is. The quality of the songs dips a bit, too, toward the album’s middle. The moody “Take All the Time” meanders, for example, and the staccato “Watches and Chains” grates. With less-sturdy song structures holding it up, Hardesty’s voice begins to overwhelm and even grate as well.
The Last Bison succeed in drawing you into their carefully-constructed, almost mystical world, but they can’t quite hold you there for Inheritance‘s duration. But that does not mean theirs is a world that is not worth dabbling in at all.