Album Review: Greensky Bluegrass 'Shouted, Written Down & Quoted'

-Tara

Bluegrass meets rock and roll, country and jam band stylings on Greensky Bluegrass’ latest, Shouted, Written Down & Quoted which was released on September 23rd. The album showcases the quintet’s sonic diversity, musical proficiency and an impassioned, often dark, lyrical depth on eleven tracks largely dealing with the complicated emotions surrounding the dissolution of a relationship.

The album begins with looking back, looking forward, and leaving on “Miss September” where the lyrics are biting and honest, “even in your dreams you knew your limits were real” - a theme that continues in “Past My Prime” which reminisces about past dreams while still looking for the things you’ve always sought. Vulnerability and uncertainty accompany acoustic guitar and mandolin on “While Waiting” while “Run or Die” flows with a dynamic undercurrent of urgency and the somber tone of “Room Without A Roof” underscores a loneliness.
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Album highlights “Hold On” (from which the album title takes its name) puts forth incredible honesty “when my eyes have awoken to the things I have broken/I’ll be gone distracted by something else” while the buoyant melody of  “Merely Avoiding” juxtaposes the serious tone of the lyrics, “We had a dream of forever but now that’s just something that we heard of…These answers don’t elude me I’m merely avoiding what I feared all along what they could be” and the extended instrumental in “Living Over” gives the feeling that perhaps time has run out on a relationship, “It’s gonna take chances to keep us alive and the chance is looking slim maybe were dying or maybe were living.”

Shouted, Written Down & Quoted is rounded out by the complex internal struggles put forth in the gothic feel of “More of Me” (which concludes with fifty seconds of what sounds like a car driving away), the jaunty “Fixin’ To Ruin” and the rollicking “Take Cover” which finds the heart still reeling with feelings and questions.
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Greensky Bluegrass - Anders Beck (dobro), Michael Arlen Bont (banjo), Dave Bruzza (guitar), Mike Devol (upright bass) and Paul Hoffman (mandolin) – cast aside any rulebook on Shouted, Written Down & Quoted, marrying complicated emotions, dynamic melodies and a driving energy that ebbs and flows gracefully with a few surprises along the way.

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