On his first proper solo album, To the Races, Eric Bachmann continues the exploration of American folk music he initiated with Crooked Fingers. Stripped down to Bachmann's gravelly timbre accompanied by acoustic guitar, these 10 songs are restrained and unadorned, making this his most austere release. For most songwriters, boiling songs down to such spare arrangements is a risky move; there's no veneer of glossy production to hide behind. But Bachmann's elliptical picking patterns are always tasteful and his voice is rich and engaging enough to fill the space.
Opener "Man O' War", in which the narrator is "caught up in a dangling sting off the shore," unfurls like a landscape at dawn. Calling to mind the density of vintage Bob Dylan lyrics, Bachmann layers image upon image in this sprawling song, set in Spain, which acts as a metaphor for displacement and loneliness. Augmented by Miranda Brown's delicate backing vocals and spacious, echoing piano accents, the naked arrangement of "Man O' War" charges the song with an affecting emotional honesty.
Where To the Races falters is when Bachmann lapses into the sort of posturing that plagues many singer-songwriters. Like Dylan or, particularly on the hoarsely whispered "Home", Bruce Springsteen, Bachmann can adopt a detached and knowing persona, weathered by experience and weary of the world. When, in "Carrboro Woman", Bachmann sings, "I came upon a wounded beast/ She was laying in the sand/ Her heart held in her hand," he exudes all the self-importance and arrogance of Leonard Cohen, but lacks the same poetic elegance to pull it off.
In spite of its flaws, To the Races charms with its somber atmosphere. Evenly paced and modestly scaled, the album sustains a mood that effectively supports Bachmann's vulnerable material. And by limiting outside influence to Brown's gorgeous backing vocals and Tom Hagerman's violin contributions-- most notably on the jaunty title track-- the album has a hermetic feel, recalling other intimate statements such as Cat Power's haunting Covers Record or Kristin Hersh's elegiac The Grotto. And although To the Races isn't as affecting as either of those projects, it's an admirably understated record that reveals yet another side of Bachmann's prolific career.
