The Great Dying – A Constant Goodbye
Will Griffith calls the music he makes with The Great Dying “dark country.” It’s a style I’ve referred to as “Americana noir.” Whatever the label, the subject matter of the Mississippi-born Griffith’s songs is heavy – busted-up relationships, addiction, and loneliness – and the music itself aches from regret. The band’s second album, A Constant Goodbye, is populated by characters fully aware of their need to grow up, but usually lacking the ability (or desire) to do so.
If you want a tone-setter of a first line, you’ll find it in A Constant Goodbye’s first track, “Blood.” The gothic twanger kicks off with, “I knew you were fucked up, you were so sweet to me,” and goes on to describe the wobbliest of relationships – “A ship is built to sail, a heart is built to sink.” “New Methico,” riding a fiddle line from Jameson Hollister, has that strung-out couple stuck in a dead-end motel – “The kind that ain’t kept well” – stuck in a quicksand-like high – “Just paranoia, track marks and doubt.” The choice, to “Quell the pain or find a way out,” is one the listener is led to believe won’t get made as much as succumbed to.
A Constant Goodbye is chock full of relatably unreliable sorts. “Arterial Rain” is a skewed country weeper spiced with honky-tonk piano (from Drive-By Trucker Jay Gonzalez) and gin-soaked with heartbreak – “To love a ghost is to love the air that only fills your lungs with pain.” “Truck Stop” is an eerie acoustic number about trying to fill a hole in the soul one way or another – “Whiskey stay with me this summer/Until she changes her mind.” And acoustic rambler “Hurt Me” keeps chasing that low of a high – “Each day you come back is a familiar heart attack/Killing me one beat at a time.”
Choices made – and not – are really the crux of A Constant Goodbye. “The Sky Over Tennessee” is a true sliding-doors type of moment, with Griffith happening upon an ex in an airport, happy in her own life – “You were smiling, standing in your captain’s hat, and I was trying hard to believe/That you were once my woman.” She’s the very personification of living well is the best revenge. Album-wrapping rocker “New Year’s Day Blues” gives us Griffith in the immediate aftermath of that break-up – “And days are long when there ain’t nobody at home/To welcome you down off the clock.” In his bio, Griffith says, “I want people to celebrate sad music because of its beauty. Sad songs help you laugh at your own sadness.” And, even if Griffith might not admit it, there’s a little bruised optimism buried in these sad songs. As the album closes, and as he’s mired in regret, loneliness, and a new, unfamiliar city, it’s New Year’s Day, so those blues can also be a new beginning.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “The Easy Way Out” – Drive-By Truckers bassist Matt Patton also plays in A Great Dying, and he co-produced this record, as well. And, when you’ve got a member of America’s best rock band in house, give him a place to shine. That’s just what this very bass-forward track does.
A Constant Goodbye was produced and mixed by Bronson Tew and Matt Patton and engineered and mastered by Tew. All songs written by Will Griffith. The Great Dying is Griffith (guitar, vocals), Tew (drums, guitar, vocals, drum programming), Patton (bass, vocals) and Craig Pratt (guitar). Additional musicians on the album include Jay Gonzalez (keyboards), Jameson Hollister (strings), Schaefer Llana (vocals), Winn McElroy (synthesizers) and Michael Scherer (keyboard programming).
Go here to order A Constant Goodbye (out August 30): https://thegreatdying1.bandcamp.com/album/a-constant-goodbye
Check out tour dates here: http://dialbacksound.com/great-dying
Enjoy our previous coverage here: Interview/Song Premiere: Will Griffith of The Great Dying on “Writing a Song in Blue Ink”
