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Melbourne Alt. Country duo The Weeping Willows are poised to deliver 10 brooding new cautionary tales with stunning sophomore outing Before Darkness Comes A-Callin’. Along with the album release, March 4th, The Weeping Willows head off on national tour dates March through May.
The second, self-produced LP from partners in life, love, and song, Andy Wrigglesworth and Laura Coates, Before Darkness Comes A-Callin’ represents the fulfillment of the pair’s lifelong dream of recording in the United States.
Before Darkness Comes A-Callin’ was tracked with Grammy Award winning engineer Ryan Freeland (Justin Townes Earle, Bonnie Raitt) at Stampede Origin Studios in Los Angeles, the setting undeniably driving The Weeping Willows to produce a record of raw, earthy, elegant simplicity.
Where much-admired debut Till The North Wind Blows (2012) arrived on a warm and wafting breeze of sweet harmonies and gentle, country strums, Before Darkness Comes A-Callin’ invites ready comparison with the work of some of Americana’s foremost tortured souls – Dave Rawlings & Gillian Welch, Shovels & Rope, The Handsome Family.
Adding the deftest of sonic touches to the palette are some of alt. country-Americana’s foremost players: Kevin Breit (Rosanne Cash) on banjo, David Piltch (Billy Bragg) on upright bass, Tommy Detamore (Ray Price) on pedal steel, Luke Moller (Kasey Chambers) on fiddle and mandolin, and guest vocals from Melbourne alt. folk duo Sweet Jean.
Lead single ‘River of Gold’ is a stunning centrepiece: a song of desire that is at once destructive and irresistible, of surrendering to fate, driven inexorably onward by urgent backwoods banjo. It’s also an arresting study in Laura and Andy’s singular harmony: theirs is a vocal partnership of profoundest familiarity and mutual respect.
The Weeping Willows have themselves been tireless travellers in recent years, gracing the stages of the Tamworth Country Music Festival, Tasmania’s Cygnet Folk Festival, and several peak music meets in their native Victoria, including Newport Folk Festival and the increasingly popular JamGrass and MountainGrass fixtures. The pair graced the stages of the Americana Music Festival in Nashville in 2013 and 2014, and, in what was a huge 2015, supported both Iris DeMent in Melbourne and Shane Nicholson across the Victorian leg of his Hell Breaks Loose album tour.
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