Nestled across from the Mississippi River in present-day Southwestern Illinois, “Cahokia” was one of and most technologically complex urban civilizations in Medieval North America, theorized by archaeologists to have been constructed by multiple indigenous tribes. This pre-Colombian city—once a thriving hub for art, culture, and commerce—fell into ruin in the final centuries of the Middle Ages over a series of hypothesized environmental and colonial catastrophes. When Greg Freeman invokes the name of this centuries-gone civilization in his latest single, it follows snapshots of contemporary disillusionment with sub-par conditions that don’t change even when it feels as though we’re living through “the days of one thing after another.” The names and faces of those in power get swapped out but the struggles stay the same. The problems the new generation inherits are just leftover ones that those before them never figured out how to solve.
Freeman has been known to dig up the roots of whichever locale serves as the site of his songs and examine how the present has grown out of its regional history. His 2025 record, “Burnover” put a bar band spin on New England gothic, mythologizing the pine-shaded corners of Vermont and Upstate New York. Since “Burnover’s” release, Freeman has relocated to Chicago, so it makes sense that the story he tells on its follow-up, “All Set The Bone”, would begin in what would eventually become Illinois. “Time to join the world you fucked up / Time to wake your girls and boys up,” he intones as a buzzy electric guitar and some rumbling drum fills crash in—a call-to-arms that eschews subliminal messaging and instead opts for desperate directness. Armed with a new backing band and production from John Congleton, Freeman and co. have never sounded so urgent. “These are the days when subtly is dead and gone forever,” he declares. Maybe it should’ve died long ago. After all, the world has ended many times before.
The Fat Angel Sings 