The Milk Carton Kids

This winter, at least in New York, has been mild as shit. I'm not complaining, just stating the facts, on some Joe Friday shit. This has fucked with my listening habits in the worst way, especially as we head into the traditionally "cold as a witches tit" days of February.

I usually like to douse myself in depressing music during the winter, not the kind of depressing music that constitute the half of Mary J Blige albums that aren't dedicated to 'no more drama'; no I am talking about the kind of depressing music that is in its way uniquely 'Merican. It has the feeling of wind whispering through the overgrown wheat fields of a long abandoned family farm in a once thriving community that is now nothing but shells of homes and humans. In a weird way this music makes the shit days of winter tolerable, putting them into perspective and keeping me from becoming one of those people that complains about the weather.

Luckily I found the perfect album to deal with this weird mix of early spring and occasional winter we have been facing; Prologue by The Milk Carton Kids. Prologue is a beautiful and haunting folk Americana gem that resonated in my bones and sets my mind adrift in those golden brown wheat fields that sway in the silence of an era lost.

Prologue drips with harmonies that are lush and gorgeous in the way of Simon and Garfunkel, two brilliant voices dancing around each other occasionally copping a feel or squeezing a cheek. When melded with The Milk Carton Kids wonderful guitar bedding you can't help but be swept away by the delicious ache.

The thing that makes Prologue so interesting to me is the way it effortlessly sways back and forth between styling's reminiscent of the most heartbreaking Ryan Adams songs with tracks like Michigan, the eponymous Milk Carton Kid and There By Your Side; and the sensibilities of albums like Workingman's Dead on tracks like Undress The World, New York and I Still Want A Little More. It is a difficult feat to bounce between the crush of pain and the uplifting honky tonk of upbeat folk; The Milk Carton Kids make it look effortless. I want to make babies with these bastards.