Review of Stand Alone by Mike Farragher From the Irish Voice - September 2004 Donegal X-Press, the locomotive Baltimore band that has made their name with punked-up jigs and reels that snagged them CD of the year with the Irish Voice back in 2001, has cast their eye on this side of the Atlantic for inspiration. The music on their new disc, the triumphant Stand Alone, generates the same greasy heat that you’d find on a griddle diner located somewhere on Route 66. More in line with the Black Crowes than the Black Velvet Band, the tunes marinade in a Jack Daniels sauce that yields smoke wafting out of your speakers with each listen. Harmonicas scream through the alternative rock riffs and sweet fiddles to create a slick, roots rock experience. “Devil In The Bottle” is the first song on Stand Alone, and it sports a tasty beer battered riff. “Take your olive branch/your four leaf clover/go chase your tail around the moon/where you are keep carrying on like that/somebody’s going to name your tune,” sings Brad Dunnells on the title track that seems like it just saw the light of day out of Springsteen’s "Tunnel of Love." A little trill of “America The Beautiful” ends this poignant track. Apart from the odd nick of a patriotic tune, the band borrows styles ranging from So-cal ska to the new country sensibilities of Lucinda Williams and Lyle Lovett to create an original American fabric. “We are an Irish-American band from Baltimore, Maryland – the most North City in the South, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, and that whole statement says a lot,” says band member Jason Tinney. “We’ve never left here. The majority of the group is from here, and everyone has family that lives here. So more and more, as artists and performers, we are drawing from this region to write our songs. Boston and New York have their Irish roots. So do Maryland and Virginia and Pennsylvania. And being just below the Mason Dixon line, I think there is a natural lean toward a Southern roots/blues feel. That sound is there, but that’s just one face of the musical styles on the album.” While at first listen, the band seems like it has moved away from the Irish vibe that made them a Baltimore club favorite, band members Brad Dunnells (guitar, vocals), Jason Tinney (harmonica, narration), Jeff Malcom (bass), Laura Hein (keyboard), Jeff Trueman (drums) and Skye Sadowski-Malcom (fiddle) feel that this is the best representation of Irish Americana that they have ever committed to tape. Adds Tinney: “It’s very different from the other albums and on one hand, musically, it’s a departure from the 'Irish/Celtic Rock' genre, but that is only in terms of instrumentation and phrasing,” says Tinney, who has published a number of books of poetry along with lending a sharp pen to the DXP songbook. “Johnny Cash was asked once if he looked at Country and Rock and Roll as two different forms and he said no. You can’t put music into a box, categorize it. Styles can intermingle, reform and offer something different to people. "Devil in the Bottle" is a good example of the kind of song the band is looking to find – a hybrid. There is the rock and roll element combined with a blues feel and jig placed in the middle to take it somewhere else. And if that’s not enough we throw 'Whiskey You’re the Devil' in there just for good measure.” DXP argues that even the CD title comes from their own unique take on Irish Americana. “After 9/11, Jason and I were performing in Ireland and I was surprised by the response certain residents had towards American foreign policy at the time," says Dunnells. “It puzzled me how at the beginning of the evening, we were criticized about a foreign policy we may or may not have agreed with. Nobody ever asked us our opinion - they just accused. Yet by the end of the night the same people had engaged us in a discussion about the righteousness of certain para-military organizations in the North of Ireland. I decided I would stand alone with both my opinions regarding either discussion.” Indeed, the editorial pages of this fine paper are routinely peppered with feelings of opposing sides between the Yanks and native Celts on how to handle terrorism, and the band captures that tension in the gorgeous prose that runs throughout Stand Alone. But where is that whiplash fiddle and snarky pub view that fans have come to expect from DXP? They’ve got to get over it and move on. Some people in the band have already begun that process. “As the fiddle player in the band, I actually enjoy playing some of these songs more than our others,” says fiddler “Sadowski-Malcom. “I actually don't think the harmonica in this album is any more prominent than in the last two, it's just that the style of music is a tad different & lends itself to more of a 'violin' sound, as opposed to that of a 'fiddle'. I think this is why I find it more interesting to play: it's a departure from more traditional fiddle elements, and a foray into using the violin/fiddle as a more contemporary layer of sound. For me, that's fun stuff!" The title ‘Stand Alone’ might be the band’s take on Irish Americana, but it also serves as a great label to slap on this wildly creative juggernaut. Side projects like the Wayfarers, a roots rock outfit fronted by Tinney and Dunnells, and the Malcom’s urban assault known as Man Down, insure that this band branches out of the Inner Harbor and challenges the stereotypes of Irish music. For that, they “stand alone,” indeed.