Shovels & Rope manages to make a lot out of a little. The guy-girl, husband-wife duo acts can get cloying, but Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst defy such pigeonholing. From their instrumentation (mostly alternating between guitars, drums, and keys) to their stage décor (repurposed wooden pallets hung behind them with original projection art), Shovels & Rope makes the barebones bone rattling, and that ingenuity makes them one of the best bands we saw live this year
This rustic Americana duo known as Shovels and Rope have long savored the gore of murder ballads. Even their name references the tools of hanging and burial. But for their fifth release, the married couple which comprises the group sang about those deaths and births which have affected their own lives. The songs on ‘Little Seeds’ reflect the emotional fall-out of the senseless murder of a close friend, the impending death of one members’ father, as well as the birth of the couple’s first child. The result gave the group’s already unusual odes a greater sense of consequence. The music has also deepened, abstracting the wildest outbursts of Appalachian folk, country and blues with more purposeful distortion. Though Shovels & Rope have always favored a ramshackle style, now their racket sounds profound.
The Fat Angel Sings 