For the uninitiated, a “Frozen Rope” s a hard line drive and a “Dying quail” is a fly ball that drops straight out of the sky and results in a hit for the batter.
There is a lot of rhetoric out there from sports pundits that baseball is dead and that we should replace it as America’s National pastime. Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, and Steve Wynn would beg to differ. To prove their point about the wonder that is baseball, they joined forces to create a fun, heart-felt album of Americana that celebrates the rich tapestry of baseball’s long and storied history.
With such a lofty concept it might be tempting to forgo looking at the music itself to nitpick whether or not the songs deal fairly and factually with the subject they address, to see if the tales of legends of baseball past are accurate. Well, I’m not qualified to comment on such things.
What I can tell you is that this is a fun album. For the most part the album has a southern-rock, country vibe that recalls the Drive-By Truckers when Mike Colley is singing lead. This is especially true on “Satchel Paige Said” and “Past Time,” both of which sound like they cut be missing cuts from the Truckers’ latest, Darker Than Creation’s Dark.
The album is at its strongest when weaving together stories of legends from the more distant past, like on “Harvey Haddix”, a song about the Pirates’ pitcher who was robbed of a perfect game in the thirteenth inning.
Not every track is a hit though. “Fernando,’ sung in Spanish is a jarring, out-of-place break from the surrounding tracks and “The Yankee Flipper,” which never manages to coalesce as both a story and song.
This may sound like a relentless over-dose on baseball lore and trivia, daunting and unappealing to the non-fan, but the songs manage to pull in memorable choruses and fun chant-a-longs to appeal even to baseball-haters. “Ted Fucking Williams” is a great sing-along, irresistible even to those who don’t know what it means to say “I’m Ted fucking Williams.”
Overall, Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails is an accessible, colorful album that perfectly captures the spirit and charm of our national pastime.
