Promotional photo
What is it about music as an art form that pushes some people to demand authenticity from those they listen to? Honesty of vision is often expected of musicians in a way that visual or dramatic artists are generally free to ignore—at the very least, there’s supposedly a virtue in musical earnestness that audiences are supposed to laud.
I have a problem with that because it’s irrelevant to the end result. It’s the same reason I took issue as a teenager when Bible Belt fundamentalists would appear on talk shows to accuse Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest of devil worship: People assume the singer and/or the songwriter is giving their worldview and not that of a character, or “the speaker,” to borrow a term from poetry. Is Bob Dylan better than David Bowie because some of his songs are about his life events and not Ziggy Stardust?
All of this to say that if you’re the type of person who chooses your next movie or book because it’s based on a true story, then Nashville-based indie outfit Arts Fishing Club may be for you.
The band has fashioned its visually understated image by embodying what a press release calls “storytellers, explorers of the human condition, and purveyors of living life boldly.” Pretty big statement for four guys playing folk-indebted rock, but okay, I’m game. Frontman Christopher Kessenich delivers a kind of mea culpa but I’m still trying here image that the songwriting supports. Numbers like “Devil on My Shoulder” offer a brief tour of inner turmoil and a debate about the depths that he (or the speaker!) may be sinking to.
The songs are clearly well-arranged, and flaunt the better aspects of the genre they’re part of. So how does Arts Fishing Club demonstrate that “introspective lyrical honesty of folk” its media literature champions? Well, I can’t hook the band up to a lie detector, but it doesn’t hurt to have a voice reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen, someone who has built a career on authenticity of purpose. I’m sure the Club’s lassoed up a few fans over the years who heard a resemblance and felt that alone was proof they were getting treated to the real deal.
