On Our Way Like We Never Met

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		Boulevards	6:31	Play
2		Small Town Crisis	7:40	Play
3		Teeth	20:50	Play
4		Lipstick	5:01	Play
5		Defender	6:34	Play
6		Teenager Killer	8:41	Play
7		Why'd you have to leave me like that?	12:01	Play

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Description

There's an old Victorian-style house in Knoxville's Fort Sanders neighborhood where Dixie Dirt rehearses, and if there's any justice in this cynical world, it will one day be hailed as a place where a phenomenal band recorded an album that marked the beginning of a long, storied and critically acclaimed career.

Not that "Pieces of the World" is Dixie Dirt's first time around the block. This band has two other stellar albums to its credit, "Springtime Is for the Hopeless and Other Ideas" and "On Our Way Like We Never Met." The four members - guitarist/singer/songwriter Kat Brock, guitarist/keyboardist Angela Santos, bassist/keyboardist Brad Carruth and drummer Pete Bryan - have weathered an aborted move to Athens, Ga., organized a beautifully moving rock opera and survived the fickle and sometimes cutthroat music scene of a college town. Along the way, they've turned heads with their creativity and originality, performing in front of thousands as part of the Sundown in the City concert series, the annual Brewers Jam and soon Bonnaroo 2005.

The band formed in 2000, quickly gaining recognition as one of the most original groups in Knoxville. Only a band with Dixie Dirt's vision could have pulled off "The Unending Perils of a Predestined Destiny," the rock opera that the group only performed three times but included a backup choir. Along the way, Dixie Dirt established itself as a powerful regional draw, playing in cities from Boston to Jacksonville, Fla., with such national acts as Rilo Kiley, Lucero, Califone, Canyon, Aloha and Town & Country. The members also organize the annual New Year's Eve celebration at Barley's Taproom of Knoxville, which features all local bands and draws more than 800 patrons every year.

Dixie Dirt is not a genre band. The group doesn't follow trends and certainly don't try to sound like what's on the radio or even some of the more obscure stuff you'll find in CD bins at independent and mega-chain record stores around the country. They've been compared to such bands as Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Low and the Pixies, but such comparisons are simply a bare-bones framework of reference.

Recorded by the band members and engineered by Pete Bryan in the old house where they rehearse, "Pieces of the World" is a hundred-dollar bill blown to rest at your feet from across a near-empty parking lot - one of those jewels of indie rock scenes in college towns across the country that you stumble across occasionally. What makes this album different from all of those other jewels is the passion that comes across in the music.

The first track, "So Good So Bad," builds slowly, with the guitar work by Kat and Angela interweaving with Pete's brush-drumming and Brad's gentle bass lines. It's a track that breaks the listener in gently, good preparation for the beautifully crashing waves of sonic emotion that advance steadily toward the album's closing track. The album's magnum opus - "Sleep, part one" and "Sleep, part two," is an 18-minute epic that starts off with the beating pulse of a guitar and Pete's rapid-fire snare-tapping. The momentum builds into a yearning, pleading howl, a maelstrom of haunting guitars that breaks into a joyful bridge that sounds like how it must feel to awaken to the first rays of morning sun after a long night of dark dreams.

That theme - of emerging from darkness into the light - permeates "Pieces of the World." The album's penultimate track is the mournful "15th Street," which starts off with a melancholy, bittersweet waltz of guitars. As the song closes, the sound builds, growing like storm clouds swirling on the horizon. There's a brief pause, and then the record closes with "Appetite," a song that divulges a great deal of what this album is about - a cry for attention, a lingering embrace with the darkness we all feel within and a turn back toward the light.

It might be melodramatic and self-aggrandizing to say that "Pieces of the World" is an inspirational album. Only by listening will you agree that the music can provide comfort and solace and a solid roundhouse kick to the idea that rock 'n' roll must somehow conform or sacrifice integrity, originality and passion for the sake of commercial success. It's the sound of a band making its mark, and if justice does prevail, it will be the latest of many incredible albums from this amazing band.

"Pieces of the World" deserves to be heard. Dixie Dirt deserves to be heard. Only by cueing it up can you answer the question you're probably asking yourself - "Is there any way this band is as good as this piece of paper makes it out to be?" After you hear this amazing album, we think you'll wholeheartedly agree that it is.