Song Highlight: The Goddamn Gallows - In League with Satan

A few months ago, I wrote about IV and The Strange Band, and their ability to combine a host of disparate sounds to make compelling music. The Goddamn Gallows from Detroit, Michigan are another band that are able to do this with aplomb. In the simplest sense, the Goddamn Gallows are a folk punk band, but they take their sound well beyond those confines by adding bluegrass and metal, all with a sort of rollicking mania. They have released seven albums since their formation in 2004, with their style gradually evolving from the rockabilly (self-described as gutterbilly) of their earlier albums to the darker and doomier sounds of their newest records. All of these sounds have been tested and perfected on the road with a relentless touring schedule (I was lucky enough to see them open for Weedeater in Baltimore in 2020).

Song Highlight: IV and The Strange Band - Train

I spend a lot of time talking about abrasive music on this website, though I did not grow up listening to such things. My younger years were spent with classic rock radio, where I harbored a disdain towards anything that was harsh. That slowly started to change when I was in college, as I began to branch away from late 60s rock. In my junior and senior years, I was engrossed with punk rock and alternative country. I appreciated how many artists in those genres were willing to experiment with sounds outside of the norm. In the realm of alternative country, I found bands like O’Death who were injecting darker and more unhinged elements into folk and country music. My delving into alternative country eventually led me to Hank III, the grandson of the legendary country singer/songwriter Hank Williams (Senior). Hank III’s music is an interesting mixture of traditional country in the vein of his grandfather and hard rock, punk, and metal. The first metal show I ever attended was a Hank III show in 2009 at the now defunct Chameleon Club in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In the first half of the set, Hank III had an acoustic guitar and played his traditional country music. He then let his hair down and replaced his acoustic with an electric guitar and launched into his hard rock songs (a style he prefers to call Hellbilly) followed by his thrash metal/death metal songs (with a band called Assjack). It was fascinating to see so many distinct musical genres on display at one show, and sometimes within a single song. It has now been approximately 9 years since Hank III has released any new music, but fortunately for us, Hank III has a son named Coleman Williams, and he released an album this year!