The Crooked Straight

Two years ago I was disgusted with them. They blew it, I thought. I’d had El Diablo tagged as one of the most promising acts in the parish, the answer to the question of how come acts like Calexico and The Handsome Family commanded full houses around town, yet nobody local was operating in the same musical territory. But this shower, with their Nancy and Lee duets,
their brilliant EP and their fuckadaisical live shows, they came along and got me all hyped up for the Irish debut of the year AD 2001.

So what happened? Well, they eschewed their own tunes to put out a passable cover of that old chestnut ‘Love Hurts’ and then released a respectable but hardly earth-shattering first album right into the teeth of the Christmas market when they should’ve waited until spring, and maximised the damn thing’s chances instead of indulging in such foolhardy and futile kamikaze gestures.

But let bygones be gone, it’s all come good in the end . . . or close enough for country. The Crooked Straight happens in a deserted ballroom in the sacred heart hotel, simultaneously embittered and ensweetened by the sad sentimentality of old country and Irish, as on the jukebox Johnny sings about a thing called love and Ray and Philomena call up your elusive dreams on a sort of dial-a-revenant hotline.

There is of course a certain amount of shuck and jive required if you’re a born and bred Hibernian dealing in Baptist-Pentecostal country, but the point is not the scam itself, but how you carry it off – in this case with a combination of Burrito Bros. freak humour and straight-faced Louvin-ian close harmony moralism. This is betimes an irritating record, especially when the listener gets a whiff of post-ironic jive (Anna Carey’s honky tonk warble can veer unsteadily between starched Ma Carter prudence and truck-stop sot to mixed effect), but tunes like ‘Led Astray’ and ‘Country Ghost’ are serious as the cancer eating away at the lungs of the Marlboro Man.

I miss the duets though. The band’s three vocalists can easily command a stage, but one does hanker for re-enactments of the old domestic spats, the don’t-come-home-drinkin’-with-lovin’-on-your-mind hissed recriminations of yore. Plus, the odd tune – ‘I’m Not Any Good’ to name one – makes too much of so-so chorus. But that’s just me putting my oar in again. The Crooked Straight hasn’t quite fulfilled El Diablo’s early promises, but it hasn’t made liars of them either.