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Mr. Blackwatch — Mary, Me
(Green Monkey GM1119, 2024, 2CD / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2024-11-22

Mary, Me Cover art

When someone mentions a “concept album,” most of us are likely to think of progressive rock of one variety or another, using such examples as Days of Future Passed, Dark Side of the Moon, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and Tales from Topographic Oceans, but we shouldn’t forget Tommy and Joe’s Garage, which stray from what’s generally thought of as prog. It does seem that the form, which gained a degree of prominence in the late 60s and through much of the 70s, fell out of favor during the 80s (though it never went away completely), and now it has regained a measure of acceptance, with popular artists like Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar getting into the game. I’ve lost count of how many new concept albums I’ve heard in the last couple of years, what with PreHistoric Animals, Ritual, What Strange Beasts, Tom Dyer, and more. Mr. Blackwatch is a band from Tacoma, Washington, and they make their recorded debut with a 2CD concept album called Mary, Me. The first track is “See the Cow (Part 2),” a country-rock song backed by banjo and pedal steel along with standard rock instrumentation. (“See the Cow (Part 1)” is, of course, the final track on the album.) But genre is one of the many things that is highly flexible for this band. Other tracks dip into folk-rock, blues, soul, and funk in addition to various flavors of rock. The story concerns the life of Mary Dun, from her abusive childhood in a small town through a time in the city, where she finds further human unkindness, to a return home as a transformed human being; it’s told largely through the eyes (and voices) of the men in her life. There are a lot of songs involving cows, but I’ll leave it as an exercise to the listener to figure out how that ties in, or what metaphorical purpose it serves. Instrumentation varies a lot from song to song, with moments of vocals accompanied by only acoustic guitar to expansive, almost orchestral, sections with keyboards. There are tracks with some very nice sax and violin as well. The chief songwriter of the group is Doug Mackey (guitar), and his bandmates are Joe Wood (drums and vocals) and Kevin Fraser (bass); they’re joined by numerous guests, including vocalists Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse of the band Skating Polly. The whole thing is very ambitious, and it’s clear that the project has been in the works for a long time. Stylistically, Mary, Me may not be progressive rock, but it has the kind of depth and craft to it that is far beyond simple pop or rock, and is sophisticated enough to appeal to an old prog-head like me, as well as listeners who just want something more ambitious than the run of the mill rock album.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Mr. Blackwatch

More info
http://mrblackwatch.bandcamp.com/album/mary-me

 

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