Playlouder - Music is the Network

‘Fast Paced World’ is the fourth album by The Duhks, a folk, roots and worldbeat group from Winnipeg, Manitoba – incidentally, the town that spawned vitriolic social commentators, Propagandhi, Swallowing Shit and... erm... Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

To that illustrious list, The Duhks are no natural successors, except in that their striking individuality sets them apart from contemporaries in their field. Or should that be ‘fields’? While almost every folky band is billed by their trumpeters with at least three (preferably non-overlapping) genre tags to assert their credentials, The Duhks really aren’t able to be compartmentalised in any way, which makes them a decidedly inconvenient band for a critic to get to grips with.

The broad and somewhat faulty umbrella of ‘world music’ comes closest, but belies the studied soul sound of much of the vocal input (courtesy of newcomer Sarah Dugas, whose style is not too dissimilar from that of her predecessor), not to mention the pop sensibility that runs through a good deal of the song writing.

Where The Duhks differ from the WOMAD wonders incapable of crossover is in being as accessible as they are interesting; ‘Fast Paced World’ is a genuine collaborative effort, with songwriting input from most of the band and numerous covers and traditionals thrown into the mix. And yet it never loses its musical focus.

Opener ‘A Mighty Storm’ recalls the relatively-recent floods of New Orleans (one of The Duhks’ many spiritual homes, no doubt) through a much older story from Galveston, weaving music, history and philosophy all together in an apocalyptic haze: “The trumpets gave them warning / You’d better leave this place…”.

The Duhks have always been excellent in their choice of cover versions and trad. arr.s; the former include Tracy Chapman’s ‘Mountains O’ Things’ and Leonard Cohen’s ‘Everybody Knows’; and the latter include stunning folk-pop updates of  ‘The Wagoner’s Lad’ (basically a Thomas Hardy novel in 5 verses) and ‘The Three Fishers’, A Charles Kinglsey (he of ‘The Water Babies’ fame) poem about grieving widows, lent extra weight when taken as a metaphor for the living casualties of contemporary warfare.

Such depth, however, is difficult to conjure from their own contributions. The titular ‘Fast Paced World’ (one of Sarah Dugas’ lyrics) isn’t exactly revelatory in its sentiments, (“We take and keep taking / Without thinking what we’re given”), though it does some gravitas through her awesome vocal, and from the fact that, environmentally at least, The Duhks walk the walk as well as talking the talk. Yes, they mean it maaan. (Check out their sister website Green Duhks for proof.)

Admittedly, there’s a timely chiding of those in positions of power who use God as an excuse for their impulses: “Time after time / his name has been misused” sings Dugas. But when compared to formative neighbours Swallowing Shit, whose career was aborted when Winnipeg City Council banned them from performing thanks to their self-explanatory number, ‘Pro-Abortion, Anti-Christ’, The Duhks’ own philosophical words wax somewhat minced.

Perhaps they have reason to curb their enthusiasm though – ‘You Don’t See It’ and ‘This Fall’ boast chart-bothering potential, with sufficiently poppy production and vocals to equal any of the celebrated soul sirens that have cropped up in the UK of late. They could yet be as big as Nickel Creek.

‘Sleepin’ Is All I Wanna Do’, though, offers its own veiled warning to the band in the line: “I could dream my whole life away”.

This is a band with massive potential. To have lost their lead vocalist and drummer and to come back with an album this coherent and strong is no mean feat. The music is energetic, evocative and eclectic.

The only cause for frustration here is the glaringly obvious fact that the band is capable of raising the bar that bit higher by producing truly meaningful music of a much more provocative nature, and reaching ears that Swallowing Shit nor indeed Propagandhi could ever hope to.

As the CD packaging loses none of its splendour for being soy-based ink printed on recycled paper (oh yeah - that's right), my belief is that The Duhks would lose none of their appeal were they to voice their concerns for the ‘Fast Paced World’ we’re living in in a way less conducive to the coffee table of collective conscious.