Whiskeytown – Faithless Street …album review

I really like this band. I spent the week living with their album Faithless Street, and what a tight album. Not just musically but vocally. It’s a true album, one song blends into another smoothly, and like I said, tight but loose in just the right spots.

Whiskeytown had one member that you might know. They were an alternative country band from Raleigh, North Carolina. They were active from 1994 to 2000. The band was led by Ryan Adams, who played a role in popularizing the alt-country genre in the 1990s. He blended traditional country with rock and indie influences. They fit in well with The Jayhawks and Wilco in that era.

Faithless Street was made fast and cheap, with a band that was still figuring itself out. It was recorded in North Carolina in 1994, and the sessions were about capturing what Whiskeytown sounded like in real time. They were limited on studio hours, so songs were often tracked live with only a few overdubs. If something felt right, it stayed, even if it wasn’t clean.

Ryan Adams was writing constantly and pushing the group to cut new material almost as quickly as it came together. Some songs had been played on stage for months. Others were nearly brand new. That mix gave the album its loose feel. You can hear moments where the band sticks to a groove and others where they’re holding it together by instinct, off the cuff.

The record opens with Midway Park, and right away, you get the blueprint. Country structure with rock volume. I love that welcoming opening riff that drives that song. Songs like 16 Days and Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight ” go into classic barroom sound with the pedal steel and open choruses. There’s also Houses on the Hill, which would later become one of Adams’ calling cards. Even in this early version, the melody sticks. 

Songs like Lo-Fi Tennessee Mountain Angel (For Kathy Poindexter) and Too Drunk to Dream go back to roots country. You also have acoustic-driven songs like Factory Girl that to me is as close to perfect as you can get. 

The production is spare. Guitars are up front. The drums don’t dominate. The vocals aren’t smoothed out, but they are tight. That raw edge became the album’s identity. Within a few years, Whiskeytown would shift lineups, and Adams would get more well-known.

He has a successful solo career and has also produced albums for Willie Nelson and collaborated with the Counting Crows, Weezer, Norah Jones, America, Minnie Driver, Cowboy Junkies, and Toots & the Maytals. He has written a book of poems, Infinity Blues, and Hello Sunshine, a collection of poems and short stories.

I hope you all will give this album a listen.