Uncle Tupleo: No Depression
I owned Uncle Tupleo’s No Depression before, and at the time, I recognized that it was good — just not what I was in the mood to listen to. It became a victim of a cash crunch and was sold to a used music shop.
I’m not sure what prompted me to give the album a second shot, especially since it was remastered a number of years ago. But in the basket it went, and I’m glad it did.
No Depression became the namesake for a style of music called any number of things — alt-country, perhaps the most enduring. There’s even a magazine named after the album.
It’s almost difficult to go back to an album that directly beget Wilco and Son Volt, while opening the door for the Old ’97s, Whiskeytown, Tift Merritt and Mindy Smith. So many bands sound like No Depression, it’s almost easy to hold a grudge against it.
But there’s a vitality to the music that just plain isn’t faked. "Graveyard Shift" did the whole loudSOFTloud thing a year before Nirvana made it passé in the ’90s. While R.E.M. and bands of that ilk gave post-punk music a Southern tinge, it didn’t go for the all-out twang Uncle Tupelo achieved. The Replacements at its most rural didn’t dig that deep.
No Depression is more than the excellent songwriting that threads the album. It’s the palpable chemistry between the young group’s members. It’s the force of hearing country music played with a brutal rawness it’s not known to possess. It’s the grizzled voices of Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, every bit as bittersweet as Johnny Cash.
Uncle Tupleo is most impressive on the faster tracks. "That Year" switches between honky-tonk and Southern rock effortlessly. "Before I Break" and "Factory Belt" demonstrate how tightly the band performed its songs, with drummer Mike Heidorn doing more than just keeping time.
On the quieter tracks, the trio really unleashes the rural aspects of its songs. "Screen Door" and the title track feel like the back porch songs they are, more so with the former. "Whiskey Bottle" is dramatic and introspective, but this track deflates the album for me.
The remastering really puts some punch into the recording. The guitars sound crisp, and the drums have real presence. Maybe that’s why I didn’t quite connect with the album the first time around — it didn’t sound as powerful as it really turned out to be.
Six bonus tracks fill out the rest of the disc, but they’re ephemera for fans.
No Depression is one of those albums that attracts the adjective "essential". But even without the subsequent influence it exerted on other bands, it’s an album that captures an important moment in time for the people who created it. There’s a lot fire in the music, and it’s incredibly easy to get drawn in by it.