Old Bricks

At this year’s Hopscotch, Old Bricks might not sound exactly like the band on the unfettered and emotionally stunning 2009 debut, Farmers. That album found the potent pair of Stuart Edwards and Andy Holmes diving deep into bone-rattling mental depravity. Cobbling together a mélange of well-worn Americana and noise elements, the duo breathed new life into a brand of emotional folk that has been mostly dead since Bright Eyes’ heyday.

Edwards and Holmes earned this downtrodden gravity during an ill-fated stint in Nashville. They assembled a five-piece band and tried to make a go of it in Music City, but that band and its dreams soon crumbled. Defeated, Edwards and Holmes retreated to their home state of North Carolina, persevering through a time of homelessness to find their footing in the Triangle.

Farmers carries the bruises of this past, expressing crushed resignation in hushed whispers, all garnished with restrained experimental odds and ends that reinforced the strung-out isolation at the songs’ core. Edward’s voice finds an impressive balance between Neil Young’s journeyman whine and Conor Oberst’s bedroom bleat. Over percussive guitar and shambling drums, he takes stock of his shortcomings, fighting for a way to overcome them.

The new cast of the band, which often includes Gross Ghost’s Mike Dillon and Cassis Orange-regular Christoper Hutcherson-Riddle, approaches things differently. The songs still resonate with wrenching emotionality, but the arrangements hew more to the electric rather than the acoustic. Captured on City Lights, a new download-only LP that’s set to be released physically later this year, Old Bricks deploy driving rhythms that beat softly at the bottom of the mix and reverb-drenched guitar that jangles with soft reassurance. It’s a dense and texturally impressive method, one where sounds—not words—carry the brunt of the emotional load. —Jordan Lawrence