The Gentle Guest’s rag-tag band of miscreant musicians throw themselves into an array of Americana on their forthcoming release Cast Off Your Human Form (July 20). The upwards-of-ten-member band dallies in blues, bluegrass, country, and jazz on their third release, weaving singer/songwriter Eric Rykal’s colorful characters into a mess of guitars, banjos, horns, and saxophones. The result is Rykal’s straightforward country-folk songs being giddily smattered by a boozy sounding gypsy orchestra.
The opening track, “Rumor Mill,” is rollicking and raucous, exploding out of the gate with a dirty guitar riff and boisterous brass section. “Who is Gonna Love You?” sounds straight out of South Carolina, a call and response spiritual enriched by the troupe’s organic harmonies. “To Pay the Piper” is enhanced by wailing saxophone and melancholic trombones and evolves into a sort of beautiful, demented waltz.
Unfortunately, most of the rest of the album sort of drudges along, unable to match the intensity and brilliance of the mentioned triumphs. Not that the other tracks are “bad” — Rykal certainly knows how to write pleasingly lazy country songs and there are definitely nice moments of plucked banjo and stark guitar. It’s just that the Gentle Guest is at its best when there are roaring horns, foot stomping tempos, and chaotic debauchery.