Not even a year out of UVA and the 6 Day Bender boys have tapped deep into our region’s rural music pulse. This first studio effort (recorded at Monkeyclaus) chugs along with driving banjo, savory guitar licks and solid vocals, proving that these guys have not been sitting around and twiddling their thumbs since graduation.
 Southern comfort: Straight-shooting country boys 6 Day Bender set a high bar on their self-titled album. |
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“Best I Can” opens the nearly hour-long affair with a quick banjo prelude, then jumps into the thick of things: foot-stompin’, knee-slappin’, honky tonk Americana. “Wartime,” which follows, is an acoustic country twanger that addresses the Iraq war and kicks the blatant flag-waving of Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” in the ass without even trying.
Despite its ambitious length, the record never derails; rather, it slows then picks up momentum like coal cars winding through the Blue Ridge. Blues numbers like “Checking Out” and “Jail Blues” are curvy mountain passes; the pensive and well-penned “Kick Out The Fire” and “Philadelphia” unravel like flat stretches of track; and wind-whipped jams like “Devil Lets You Dance” and “Wobbly Ladder” are full-throttle, downhill jaunts.
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Virginia countryside isn’t the only fuel that propels 6 Day Bender’s sound, though. As the album unfolds, you hear hints of the Stones’ rollicking blues, touches of The Velvet Underground’s edge (the band covered Velvet songs for a Halloween bash at Orbit Billiards last year) and strains of Johnny Cash’s gritty ballads.
The only things missing from the album are the fiddle and vocal stylings of former member (and former C-VILLE employee) Lauren Moses, who added a satisfying melodic dynamic to the group’s previous live record, Eastham Basement. But the four men, all skilled musicians, don’t have a problem filling out that space.
The most exciting thing about 6 Day Bender is the solid songwriting. It would be easy for such a young group to slip into the comfort zones of cover tunes, shapeless bar jams or old-time traditionalism, but their debut places them immediately alongside veteran local songsmiths like Jim Waive and Sarah White.
On the woeful closer, “Going Back Again,” Luke Nutting sings, “And I’ll just pack my things and be on my way.” Hopefully he’s not expressing a desire to up and leave us, because 6 Day Bender has found a niche here, and I look forward to much more from this promising foursome.
6 Day Bender will play a CD release show at Satellite Ballroom on Friday, April 18.
