Death Vessel

Death Vessel. I pondered the name driving to the show as I could just as easily be driving to a speed metal concert as an introspective folk pop band. Fortunately it was the latter. I missed the first act, Courtney Andrews. When I arrived, Micah, a member of Death Vessel, was sitting in a chair alone with a 12-string guitar playing Troubadour-style folk. He was deft with the guitar and his voice held depth and warmth, just not a lot of projection. Unfortunately, as would plague me throughout the night, I couldn’t fully understand the lyrics.
Folk is a form that requires its words and when you can only pick up every fourth or fifth word, the work as a whole suffers. I’m a big fan of having a big ticker screen scroll the lyrics close captioning style for such shows. Unfortunately, despite the practicality of the idea, they’re not very practical and so I had to get by on every fourth word. They were pretty songs, if not a bit choppy.

Several songs in he pulled out an electric guitar and my word comprehension dropped considerably. Despite this, the electric was a nice counterpoint to the inherent folksiness of the music. He played several more pieces on the 12-string. He used the instrument well and managed to layer a slightly out of tune overtone which created an interesting effect. If I closed my eyes I could pretend that I was in the 1800’s Ozarks listening to my neighbor playing on his porch. He closed with a gospel flavored lullabye sung a cappella, which was the first time I could really here him. It was lovely.

As it turns out, Micah plays the stand up bass for Death Vessel. It wasn’t his voice that helms that ship, that honor belongs to Joel Thibodeau, also the acoustic guitarist. He is a slight man with long brown hair. What’s remarkable about him is what comes out of his mouth. He sings in a solid soprano range and his voice has nakedness about it that stirs the emotions. Even so, with my eyes open he sounded like a just kicked in the nuts Neil Young. With my eyes closed Patsy Cline, or possibly a doped up Dusty Springfield. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. I continued to play with that throughout the night. The rest of the band consisted of a largely understated drummer and another guitarist that also played the banjo and ukulele.

They opened with “Bruno’s Torso” from their new album. It set the tone for the entire show and was the only song I knew. In each song, when Joel was singing, the band would fall into the background supporting role, sometimes close to the point of a cappella. There was also a place in most songs in which the band was given to instrumental jamming, which they would do with great skill. Micah would change the way he played from song to song, using the bow for blue and plucking for bluegrass.

In his opening to a song with a big band feel Joel introduced the song as being about a road crew. “Our songs are about pretty mundane stuff,” he deprecatingly said. Their next song had a slightly tropical rhythm but the music, like most of the rest, was very down home. They were excellent musicians and Joel’s voice was amazing but alas, without the lyric ticker I was out of luck if I wanted to know what the songs were about. After close to an hour, the band closed with a piece of Americana Rock that was by far the hardest thing they played all evening. When they were done Joel muttered something and the band left the stage going in different directions. The audience of 40 people, mostly kids and music geeks, briskly got up and quietly dispersed.

As I left I had to ask someone whether they announced that there would be no encore or if that was a spontaneous group reaction. Either option would have been appropriate for the evening. As it turns out, that’s what the mumbling was about. I’d have known that if there were captions. I left feeling quite introspective with a little banjo bounce in my step. Overall it was a great show and was worth it for the voice alone. Open, close. Open, close.

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Tagged as: Sub Pop Records

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