Greg Freeman All Set the Bone
Greg Freeman’s new record is… well, bleak might not be quite the right word, but it’s not hopeful, either. Something south of unsettling might be the best way to describe All Set the Bone, and that notion addresses not just the current state of pretty much everything, but also the changes Freeman’s made in his own life – committing to music full-time (a scary-ass financial proposition in 2026), as well as decamping from his longtime Vermont home to write in the American Southwest and record in LA. The expansive locales are reflected in both the record’s length (70-plus minutes) and range of characters and their flaws. For better (musically) or worse (the world outside the album), All Set the Bone fits the times we find ourselves in.
The album’s lead track, “Cahokia,” opens the record with one hell of a knockout line – “Time to join the world you fucked up.” Set against chime-y guitars, the song and its title compare our own current decay to indigenous mounds found on the shore of the Mississippi River, their origins lost to time, just as we may be before too long – “The future is a desert too/But a thirsty man at least knows what to do.” Ruminating on these mystery mounds reminds me of my own move out west 14 years ago. Even though I’d traveled to Colorado before, you tend to fixate on seemingly obscure things more when you’re uprooting your whole world.
The music gets more aggressive on the next two tracks. “Totaled” is a ragged-edge rocker that recalls early Nirvana while detailing a catastrophic car wreck – “I couldn’t pick my Toyota out of a lineup/Lost in the uniformity of violent death” – before changing tone ever so slightly as the singer realizes he’s cheated death, at least for one more day – “And how do you understand the impossible luck that’s found you/Picking out the coins from your totaled hit-and-run?” “Culture” is a driving, abrasive meditation on getting lost in life’s minutiae – “And in the laundry list of things to perform/Did your appetite go lukewarm” – before crashing into a wash of guitars, horns and artistic doom – “No culture/And no more rock n’ roll.”
So, can we save ourselves? As a whole, probably not – we seem to be a bit doomed. On All Set the Bone, it really seems to be about that idea of eking it out for one more day. The subject of the twang-and-organ “Loser’s Prize” learns to protect themself, at the expense of losing the world at large – “Your fortress will become your prison/With your passions as your cell.” Likewise, the beautiful-turned-chaotic “Hail Mary,” which begins with mysterious guitar and violin interplay, warns of that same kind of self-destructive isolation – “Looking down from your hotel room /Like a ghost behind its tomb” – before eventually devolving into a frantic squall of an ending. And maybe that’s what Freeman’s getting it – the detachments, the silo-ing, the lack of personal interaction we’ve all come to regard as “the new normal” is what will pull us apart and, ultimately, destroy us if we let it. So “join that world you fucked up,” while you’re still part of it.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “Untitled 10” – crunchy, minor-key jangle and a perfectly jagged violin solo from Scott Daniel backstop Freeman’s songwriter for the end-of-days lament – “A thousand gears between my ears, working overtime/To taxidermy every worthy heartbreak into rhyme.”
All Set the Bone was produced, engineered and mixed by John Congleton (assistant engineer, Rachel White) and mastered by Matt Colton. All songs written by Greg Freeman. Musicians on the album include Freeman (vocals, guitar), Garrett Linck (bass guitar, group vocals), Joey Sullivan (drums, percussion), Carney Hemler (guitar, group vocals), Sam Atallah (piano, keys, trumpet, horn arrangements, group vocals), Scott Daniel (violin), Anna McClellan (vocals), Trinity Ace (vocals), David Ralicke (saxophone), Vikram Devasthali (trombone) and Mike Bolger (accordion).
Go here to order/stream All Set the Bone (out October 2):
https://gregfreeman.merchtable.com/?
https://transgressive.lnk.to/allsetthebone
Check out tour dates here: https://greg-freeman.net/tour
Enjoy some of our previous coverage here: Show Review: Greg Freeman at Denver’s Globe Hall