SON VOLT
Okemah and the Melody of Riot
Sony/ BMG
· Written and produced by Jay Farrar.
When Uncle Tupelo broke up in 1994 it fractured the band’s fanbase into two distinct camps. It would seem that in the public eye, Jeff Tweedy and his alt-country institution Wilco came out ahead in the split, but with Okemah and the Melody of Riot, Jay Farrar proves he’s not out of the running yet. As Son Volt he makes some of the best, wistful roots rock out there and though that genre has the potential to be soppy and boring, Farrar has never succumbed to that. Here, his groaning wail and glistening guitar lines drive the album through fuzzy road-trip fodder and achingly melancholy songs of longing. Pulling off both equally well, this album succeeds as a whole better than any of Son Volt’s previous outings, and given the fact that Wilco, despite their diversion into noisy experimentalism, has never lived up to their opus, Being There, I’m just about ready to crown Farrar the winner in the post-Uncle Tupelo battle.
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