专辑简介

The Record:Pack Up the Circus is the most complete, collaborative, definitive expression of the spirit of Session Americana captured on an album to date. It is a celebration of camaraderie, community, songcraft and, at moments, an unabashed raucous party. This is a band that knows how to have fun, but it is also a band that enjoys chasing down the essence of the song -- whether it’s a country-tinged reflection, a rowdy debauch, or a cinematic pop landscape.Producer Anais Mitchell seems to whisper in every corner of this album. She holds the sprawling mass of Session Americana to task; with this many people wandering in and out of the studio it would have been easy to lose the plot, but Anais keeps the record feeling whole and honest.In the opening title track, the band deeply ponders identity and mortality, and these are themes that recur throughout the record in lines like “time is ticking and I’m Philip K. Dick-ing, unstuck in time” and “the anticipation leads us up to the mark, but the realization broke our hearts.” It seems fitting that those sentiments could be reflected in the album’s title as well as in what lies ahead, as the band prepares for its most rigorous touring schedule since its inception. In “It’s Not Texas,” “just another pretty face, a decent voice, a beat up case” tells the story of a disillusioned young musician, while “Pack Up the Circus” ponders the loneliness of the performer’s art: “In the concrete room he sings through the bars, far from the lights, the stage and the stars.” Both songs are ultimately ambiguous -- but more celebratory than discouraging.Except for an old Mills Brothers standard, all the songs on Pack Up the Circus are drawn from the communalpens of the Boston folk/rock scene with many co-writes, songs by friends, and songs finished in the studio with the help of the whole collective. Stories from long years on the road by the band’s veteran musicians end up as vignettes, all telling a tale of madness, disturbance, greed, and confusion, as mentioned in Dennis Brennan’s “Mighty Long Time.” And though unresolved, those stories remain hopeful, which is reflective of the very core of Session Americana’s ethos: the group defies the odds and matures slowly and naturally into a truly great band or collective. Whatever you call it, it’s inspiring music.