05. Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires – Dereconstructed
I really liked the songs on the Glory Fires’ last album, A Bomb in Gilead, but that album didn’t make my year-end favorites list because I hated the production. It sounded too clean. It stripped the noise and fury away from Lee Bains’ live set. And oh what noise & fury that is; Bains III & the Glory Fires are unequivocally one of the best live acts in rock music today. Part of what makes Dereconstructed so great is that it sounds like a Glory Fires show. It’s loud, full of energy & reverb & distortion. It’s the dirty south, sludging out of a Gibson SG after last call on the Strip in Tuscaloosa. This is their first release on Sub Pop records, and it is a must listen if the words “as mush country as it is punk” titillate you in any way. The other part of what makes this album so great is its lyrical focus. I’d refer you to a wonderful article on the album (
http://bittersoutherner.com/lee-bain...reconstructed/) but to me what this album speaks of is the experience of living & growing up in the modern South: how to still be proud of it while owning up to its failures. It’s an important vision for a left-wing American South. It sounds & feels like the good people that I spent my time with living in Alabama for 4 years: the people making their communities a better place every day, the people rejecting old politics of systemic oppression, the people who band together to make a home a home. THIS is southern rock, mother****er.