Few genres have a richer tradition of sticking it to the man than folk music. Even before Woody Guthrie first inked “This Machine Kills Fascists” onto his guitar, artists have been using the sparse, traditional instrumentation and dense lyricism of folk to draw attention to society’s ills. Now that Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office, there’s a lot to rail against.
Songs of Resistance, the fourth LP from the Madison folk-based quintet The Whiskey Farm, has a lot to say about the current state of affairs. Beginning with the heartfelt opener, “You Are Welcome Here,” the album is a relentless takedown of Trump’s brand of politics.
When Songs of Resistance is on, it’s really on. Two examples that work are “Flag Pin,” a cheeky deconstruction of corporate politics, and “Keep Me Down,” a hopeful rocker that calls to mind Tom Petty. These songs demonstrate that the band knows how to write political material without beating the listener over the head. Much of that can be credited to bandleader Jason Horowitz, whose boyishly earnest vocals anchor the subject matter in sincerity.
But the band sometimes struggles to find the balance between music album and news report, and Songs of Resistance occasionally falls victim to over-sharing. “Follow the Money” starts off as a laid-back yarn about “whose pocket’s getting lined,” but quickly loses traction when it starts attacking Vladimir Putin and EPA chief Scott Pruitt. And the album’s title track, which talks about “standing downstream from Pete and Woody,” seems more like the band members are trying to convince themselves that they can solve these problems rather than rallying the audience.
This is not music for cynics. The infectious positive vibe that surges through Songs of Resistance is admirable; there really aren’t a whole lot of songwriters with their finger on the political pulse who can find the bright side. And Horowitz does that time and time again on Songs of Resistance, mining the darkness of real life for songs that both uplift and inform.
In Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers’ sprawling ode to folk in the sixties, the title character says at one point, “If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.” The Whiskey Farm’s Songs of Resistance are very much new, taking on a political nightmare that we’re all still living. And like Woody Guthrie, Billy Bragg or anyone else who’s ever used folk music as a pulpit, Songs of Resistance will serve as a time capsule for a dark time in U.S. history.