You’ve undoubtedly heard the line that country music is three chords and the truth. It goes deeper than that, though. It’s not just the truth, but more often than not it’s self-truth. Opening up about one’s own foibles and self-doubts adds an integrity to the twang that you just don’t get observing from a distance. That’s readily apparent in the 3rd full-length release from Salt Lake City’s Triggers & Slips, entitled What Do You Feed Your Darkness?.
Morgan Snow, the band’s frontman and songwriter, bares his soul on several of the album’s cuts. Family Vs. Business is the story of a patriarch whose family could never admire him the way the community did. The title track is about struggle, but with a seemingly happy ending that “shadows need light to fall”. Snow sings it with no accompaniment except his acoustic guitar and that makes the song just that much more personal. Going Nowhere leans a little more toward folk with its realization that a life’s purpose isn’t particularly majestic.
A few of the songs, while still a little introspective, take on a lighter feel. Done With Debbie is a promise to be “done with lyin’, cussin’, smokin’, and drinkin'”. It has a lounge-singer style with the electric keyboards that is not what you think of as country music, but it’s all George Jones when Snow sings that he’s done with Debbie, too. It Won’t Hurt is a Dwight Yoakum cover with a tears-in-my-whiskey storyline. An audibly bright moment is the duet with Lilly Winwood on You Did It To Me Again about a lover who’s never really going to return the feeling.
Previous Triggers & Slips records have had more rock and roll content, whereas this one is pretty clearly country music. However, Morgan Snow’s experience in those other genres pays off here, making What Do You Feed Your Darkness? a good album to check out even if you don’t consider yourself a country music fan.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.