Ever since its 2008 debut, Shovels & Rope has brandished a rare, raw brand of honesty through music that growls and spits, sweats and swings from verse to chorus to roaring solo. There’s always been something special about this duo, but never has that special thing been so as in their 2016 release Little Seeds. Plenty has been written already about the duo’s decision to get personal this time, their still-fresh, unexpected parenthood, their reckoning with the dementia of Michael Trent’s father. Here’s something Shovels & Rope’s Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst learned after unexpectedly getting pregnant: having a kid is a delicious hell nothing can prepare you for. The husband-and-wife team coped with the insanity by making their loudest record to date, Little Seeds, injecting their trademark country with a strain of distortion ripped right from the gospel according to the Jesus and Mary Chain.
All of those things are laid bare in this disc; but even if you didn’t know the backstory, the music is itself powerful, whether it’s riding a fuzzy guitar pedal or echoing off the upper registers of Cary Ann Hearst’s acoustic strings. Known for passionate harmonies, Shovels & Rope lapses just as frequently here into octave unison — their two sets of vocal cords ring like one voice echoing against itself. Stylistically, they hop from punk to folk to country, but you’d only know that if you listened very closely. The prevailing vibe of the record is a musical manifestation of Trent and wife/collaborator Hearst themselves.
The Fat Angel Sings 