bartered souls and a crooked brow - furrows’ debut album review

Illustration by Michael BollsTo furrow is to, generally in a pained manner, wrinkle one’s forehead. This expression is so pronounced that the bunched skin resembles the parallel farming trenches, from which, the verb derives: furrows. While digesting the lyrics presented in Furrows’ self-titled debut, you imagine that Cody Cox, lead singer and songwriter, has heard that description before. It isn’t hard to suppose that, after living some of the experiences described here, the topography of one’s brow would be altered. It is a credit to the songwriting that these experiences are felt, with the mind, just as acutely as the physical expression would be noticed by the eyes.

The album is dense with well-written imagery and emotion, and starts out with Sweet Anesthesia, a twangy tale of the relief that can only come in forgetting. Cox sings, over a punchy swing rhythm, “I'll buy you a drink if you whisper in my ear. Just promise me that I won't wake up 'til sometime next year.” The initial impression is one of a strong familiar tie to the rootsy leanings of Cox’s former band, Goodman County, where he was also joined by Furrows’ bassist Barry Shannon and drummer Tony Abercrombe. But where Goodman County was more of a freewheeling amalgam of garage, punk and country, Furrows is more evolved and polished, showing a wider variety of influences.

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