At first listen, No River City's Wolves and Fishes sounds like a musical conversation between Ryan Adams' jangling acoustic guitar and Cracker's electric sloth. But several more plays reveal vivid stories about a scruffy everyman with a chip on his should against rich people and frustrated by his bad luck with girls, who works as a janitor and handyman and whose parents were gun-toting bank-robbing outlaws.
NRC's lead singer and songwriter, Drew de Man, is quite a storyteller. His colorful tales—even more than his folksy, well-rounded melodies—will draw you in and make you want to find out what happens next. As you're becoming hooked, you realize what capable musicians he plays with. The song "Jacy Farrow" tells a simple story of love gone horribly wrong. Boy wants to run away with girl, girl says her daddy won't allow it, boy slaps girl, and girl's daddy shoots boy dead. Told from a young boy's perspective, "Raised By Outlaws" shows nothing bonds a family like a little bank robbery and being on the lam together: "Momma drove a getaway car from the Second American Bank / Smiled as she threw the money under the floor and I held up the plank."
The band formed in 2000 after de Man returned to Georgia from a year of living in Europe. NRC toured the Southeastern states several times, and peaked in 2003 when their first album, This Is Our North Dakota, developed a following on college and community radio stations on the East coast. The band reorganized in 2005 and released Wolves and Fishes earlier this year.
--Boise Weekly, Boise, ID
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When Drew De Man sings about warding off bears on NO RIVER CITY’s second CD, Wolves and Fishes, one can almost see the teeth and claws of his personal demons swatting at his back. De Man leads an alienated procession on a path into country music’s richest, blackest soil. With every character he creates and every twist along the path, the group adapts its dark, bucolic twang to fit the mood. Sometimes songs tumble at a galloping pace, while others move much more slowly. What sets NRC apart from the rural-music masses is a penchant for infusing alt-country songcraft with lost-in-the-moment improvisation. Wielding a nontraditional approach gives a sense of spontaneity to each song, but never at the expense of delivering a genuinely heartbreaking performance. --Creative Loafing, ATL Best of 2007
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Atlanta, Georgia. Dan denk ik aan Joe South, The Black Crowes, Drivin’ n Cryin’ en aan Hot ‘Lanta van The Allman Brothers. Voortaan zal ik ook aan No River City denken. Deze band uit Atlanta, onder leiding van Drew de Man (zanger, gitarist, toetsenist), heeft namelijk een heel goede cd gemaakt. Wolves And Fishes (eigen beheer) is de tweede cd van de band, welke is geproduceerd door niemand minder dan Teddy Morgan in zijn studio in Nashville. Dat klinkt als een aanbeveling – en dat is het ook. No River City heeft van Morgan een lekker gruizige sound meegekregen, waarin vooral de moddervette elektrische gitaar van Eric Amata heel goed tot zijn recht komt. De man levert in bekant elk nummer een knallende solo af. Dan komt er nog bij dat De Man (ja, die zanger en componist) een gave hand van schrijven heeft, waardoor nagenoeg alle nummers de middelmaat ontstijgen. Speciale vermelding verdienen Way Home Soon, dat mij sterk doet denken – zeker ook qua zang – aan Chestnut Mare van The Byrds, de epische countryrocksong Fancy Little Fire en de soulvolle afsluiter Dissolved In Your Whiskey. Niet in de winkel te koop, dit Wolves And Fishes (ook niet in Amerika), wel bij Miles Of Music en tijdens optredens. Mijn advies is dan ook deze geweldige cd te kopen bij een concert van de band – sla je twee vliegen in één klap. Voor de thuisblijvers zoals ik, is er gelukkig nog de internetwinkel. --Alt.Country.NL
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The photos accompanying some of the songs above appear courtesy of Sebastiao Salgado, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, William Gedney and Bruce Davidson. They're all awesome photographers, so you should check them out.
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NRC has released "Wolves and fishes" themselves on a very limited basis. You can hear it on college and non-commerical radio, and you should request it all the time. You can buy the disc at shows--both a standard jewelcase and a hand-printed, signed and numbered version--but you won't find the disc in stores or online outside of Atlanta yet. A good idea would be to go to www.MilesofMusic.com and buy our record, "This Is Our North Dakota". You won't regret listening to "the old one." People say it's good for drinking, driving, long, lonely nights and road trips especially. Some songs might be good for f*ckin', but we'll leave that up to you.
