Pinebox Serenade: Press

Texas collective known as Pinebox Serenade present their self-titled debut of gothic Americana. It`s a loose array of dirgey mountain folk, dark ballads and gypsy tales, all graced with bluegrass elements and bedeviled with the irreverence of alt. country. The seven members, four of whom sing, fill out their rough-hewn rural arrangements with mandolin, fiddle, cello, lap-steel, banjo, guitar, bass and drums. Their songs speak of such notable members of society such as the town drunk, the local gravedigger, the marginally insane, the lovelorn and the doomed. Recorded and produced by Slobberbone`s Brent Best, in his Denton home studio. The 11 songs on this acoustic hootenanny with its dark lyrics but sprightly music reveal a band who understands the power of contrast. (Hot Link)

What if Leonard Cohen fronted a bluegrass ensemble? Denton's Pinebox Serenade can give you a pretty good answer, somewhere in the middle of their seven-piece medley featuring, among other things, mandolin, fiddle and cello. Serenade has become a ubiquitous favorite in area dives over the past year or two, their fare ranging from dark, smoky minor-chord numbers to old-timey, piston-driven whiplash romps, to Slobberbone-ish whiskey narratives about the other side of the tracks. Not surprisingly, Slobberbone's Brent Best recorded last year's debut and is working with them on this one as well.

This busy group of Denton musicians take some time out of their busy touring schedule to make a fairly rare appearance in Dallas tonight. The strength of this band is in the arrangements which are sophisticated without being too busy or thrown in just to have them there. If you're going to have accordion in a song, you better know how to use it. Thankfully, they do.