APRIL 2009 ONLINE EDITORIALS

Arliss Nancy - Dance to Forget

By Nathan Harper

“I listen to everything. But country.” How often have you heard someone say that or said it yourself? What is it that’s so unappealing about the music of those hard working folk from the heartland? Could it be that parts of it are actually pretty palatable, but that there’s always just a little something that ruins it for the whole of the track?

Lots of these country questions, are answered by Arliss Nancy on their debut CD. To be fair, they’re not country per se but a qualified version of it, and with Drag the River out of the picture, there’s an alt-country shaped hole in the local music landscape that needs filling.

And, as was the case with DtR, when former rockers decide to channel their inner cowboy, much of what makes regular country music unappealing to many folk is drowned out in the roar of gritty guitars and even grittier vocals. The last time these lads were onstage they were called Miss Anne Marie and before that Until We Wake, and this latest incarnation has allowed them to combine the energy of their rock days with country music’s pathos, to generally agreeable results.

Is it evocative of its alt-country forerunners? Certainly, but there’s something universal about drinking whiskey and feeling alienated at times out here between the foothills and plains, and when Arliss Nancy articulate this, they bring enough heart to the genre to give Dance to Forget the toe tapping, and occasionally head-banging, feel their sound needs.