Artist: Over the Rhine
Album: Love & Revelation
Label: Great Speckled Dog
Release Date: 3.15.19
As partners in music and life, Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler sound as comfortable and familiar as that favorite pair of perfectly broken-in shoes. They’ve seen a lot of water run under a lot of bridges in 30 years—decades they’ve spent endlessly refining the quaint sort-of-folky songwriting they offer as Over the Rhine. Love & Revelation makes a well-weathered musical signpost to mark that anniversary, weaving all that life and love into a work of arresting eloquence and heart-piercing honesty.
“Love and revelation / baby, that is you and me / and inspiration,” Bergquist summarizes the title theme over a light revival-style chant in one of the set’s livelier spots. Like the melodies and instrumentation they’re hung on, the themes are as natural and pure as a sunrise. The duo and their backing Band of Sweethearts let each song unwind gently and unadorned, with just the graceful backing it needs. Dressing them up would only be a mistake.
The rich sound can be aural comfort food to listeners who love country or Americana, but generally avoids genre trappings enough to be accessible to anyone. It’s often a solemn affair but not exactly a somber one—there’s loss and mourning in here jumbled together with sweetness and reassurance (“Don’t know if we can roll away this stone / but either way, you’re not alone”). That contrast also only enhances the warmth of moments like “Rocking Chair” or “Betting on the Muse,” which sound just the way lying under a cozy quilt feels.
Bergquist croons, “Is it sacrilegious dancing / in the light of all we’ve lost?” in the late stretch, and by then the duo’s superb singing and writing have already provided the best answer. Timeworn but hopeful, they’re still finding simple beauty through any ups and downs that come.
—Geno Thackara
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