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Darkness On The Edge Of Town: No River City Gives Alt-Country A Night Music Makeover

Drew DeMan nervously paws at his black Velcro beard while acknowledging the irony in naming No River City’s 2003 full-length debut This is Our North Dakota. Tracking the growth of the gentlemanly comedic mustache he sported just days before - from a five o’clock shadow to bristly midnight bush - encapsulates no small metaphor for his journey into country music’s most derelict terrain.

In conversation, he flippantly refers to the recording simply as North Dakota, an undeniably loaded title amidst the backdrop of an Americana landscape. The annals of rural music will forever bear the weight of Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen’s ode to the Dakotas' neighboring Corn Husker state. But rather than poke fun at The Boss’ ballads of Heartland depression, North Dakota is DeMan’s earnest lament for the same fertile soil. “I really do have a fascination with Nebraska and the Dakotas,” he admits with a hint of excitement coming over his voice, as though he were addressing some sort of taboo or guilty pleasure. “What Springsteen was after, calling his album Nebraska, was something about a sense of American desolation and despair. I’m really quite attracted to that kind of darkness.”

As he shifts gears to talk about two forthcoming No River

City recordings currently in production, DeMan seems to fetishize the darkness that’s become one of the driving forces behind his songwriting. “I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a goth, or anything like that, but I’m comfortable with darkness,” he continues. “I don’t know if it’s because I was scared of the dark when I was a kid and have become fascinated with it later in life, but it leaves a lot to the imagination.”

The two recordings slated for release later this year include a self-released EP called Blues for the Good ol' New World. The second offering is a full-length, tentatively titled Can Be Made to Shine. DeMan plans to shop around the latter to a lengthy list of labels, including New West, Yep Roc, Bloodshot, Sugar Hill and several others.

Since 2001, DeMan has fronted No River City, first singing and playing guitar as a two-piece with Terri Onstad (cello, bass, vocals). In the beginning, the Atlanta combo performed mostly as an acoustic duo, but when Onstad and DeMan parted ways in the spring of ’05, No River City expanded to a five-piece.

These days, NRC’s lineup includes Chris Poma (bass), Eric “Chach” Amata (guitar, mandolin), Nathan Green (keyboard, accordion, vocals, mandolin) and Mark Carbone (drums). With this lineup, the group’s sound has evolved to fill out a much more bucolic take on rustic gloom. Comparisons to like-minded songwriters, such as Will Oldham, Neil Young and Townes Van Zandt, are not without warrant.

 

DeMan’s lyrics can be uncomfortably indulgent in their honesty, and draw power from the kaleidoscopic arrangements of a larger ensemble. “There are a few more fun songs with these new recordings, but someone always dies and there’s always a sad, hopeless addict or a broken heart or two. There’s one song that romanticizes being out on the open road, so it’s not all about breakup’s, depression and death,” he says.

Songs like “Bears,” for example, drift toward country music with a capital “C,” while DeMan’s chaste vocal drawl in “Dissolved In Your Whiskey” leans toward a dark folk waver that bleeds into psychedelia. Lush arrangements in “Leftover Men & Machines” adopt more of an artsy approach than traditional Americana, while the rootsy stomp in “Jacy Farrow” embraces a much more traditional sound. Within this conflict, No River City emerges as a truly alternative country outfit that’s bound by darkness and the mystery of a lonesome highway ahead.

-Chad Radford