Townes Van Zandt's legendary status in American folk and country music has been well documented, yet this collection of covers by Scott Kelly, Steve Von Till and Scott 'Wino' Weinrich, three of the most creative and innovative metal/experimental musicians in the last 25 years serves as a brilliant reminder of the Texan's talents.
This isn't the first time these artists have covered Van Zandt. Equally impressive to anything on this record is Kelly's apocalyptic folk project Blood and Time's rendition of Rake; Von Till did a stellar job of The Snake Song a few years ago too. The pedigree of the artist being covered and the artists doing the covering meant that this was always going to be a fantastic record. The song order, which has each one of the musicians playing back-to-back apart from the last two songs, flows beautifully, as do the own guys arrangements, as if these songs were meant to be played this way.
Although I personally prefer the musical creations of Von Till and Kelly in general, for me Wino stands out as the star performer on this record. Nothin' in particular is gorgeous and sorrowful in equal amounts, and A Song For is the perfect closer, off Van Zandt's final studio record. It's awesome to see the idiosyncratic nature of each of the performers shining through - in particular, Kelly reinterprets Tecumseh Valley in a drastically slower manner; using his stunning ability to rinse every drop of feeling out a single chord for dramatic effect (see Catholic Blood off 2008's The Wake also), making it even more emotionally flooring.
A must listen; here's hoping a volume two is in the pipeline.
9/10
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