Album Notes

Reviews and Bio below.. Creative Loafing Critic's Poll "Best Alternative Band of 1995" Rumored proclivities aside, Smoke's version of chamber country blues is still one of the most iconoclastic and enjoyable around. This all-star post-Opal aggregate enjoys a suprising amount of fame, given their interminably morbid style, but that probably says more about their audience than it does about their music, for Smoke certainly do not pander to anyone's lowest-common-denominator expectations. Their second album should not only extend the musical boundaries they've been operating in, but also bring them notoriety far beyond their supplicants at the Point and Clermont. CMJ That Smoke's most obvoius reference point is Tom Waits is both complimentary and misleading. Like Waits, Smoke's vocalist/lyricist Benjamin weilds an immediately striking, tattered growl that is particularly fond of wandering in and around shadowy places and downtrodden characters. His backing - cornet, banjo, cello, guitar and sparse percussion - weaves a similarly moody, rag-tag tapestry of color. But idiosyncracy comes in an unlimited variety of shapes and sizes, and Smokes brand of twisted Southern dispossession enjoys a universe all its own. Rather than lingering in mere histrionics or fabricated atmosphere, Smoke creates emotion through difficult, often disparate musical pathways. Benjamin's musings are pained, sarcastic and, at times, nerve rattling, while the melodic lines created by his bandmstes' brass and strings are understated and beautifully woeful, layered among a bed of plunking banjo and feathery electric guitar work. The world is an undeniably more interesting and eerie place as visualized by this kind of exquisite storytelling, and this Atlanta collective's secon long-player creates a considerably rich and provocative one. While best as a whole, "When It Rains," "Train Song," Debbey's Song," and "Snake" are some of the record's best fasting tunes. by Colin Helms Interview Another Reason To Fast, the sophmore album by Atlanta's Smoke, is positively drenched in the three d's of cabaret gloom: dissolution, dissipation, and desperation. Surname-free frontman Benjamin's gravelly vocals apply a decidedly Tom Waits-esque veneer to dusky tales of lost boyfriends and rotgut-fueled benders, while daubings of trumpet, cello, and timpani illuminate the music's darkest corners. by David Sprague New York Press The saying in Atlanta is "Fuck the Olympics, but leave Benjamin alone," and the lead singer of Smoke certainly is the sickliest-looking sex symbol ever to compete for the role of the thinnest man in rock. The decadent air of Smoke's albums may evoke Tom Waits, but would-be country cousins like Nick Cave would absolutely adore the jury-rigged cello, banjo and cornet that propel this stellar combo. The band's live performances are right up there with well-known house-rockers like Mazzy Star, but the impressive album can only hint at the glorious horror of watching Benjamin display himself on stage. In finding the rural beauty that separates languidness from boredom, Smoke has become the most Southern band around, turning nightclubs across America into long walks in the woods. by J.R. Taylor LA Weekly As a fanfare of scratching cellos and a lone cornet sets the stage for the disc's opening cut, you can visualize a group of Reconstruction-era miscreants lazily making music on a large, rundown back porch in the Deep South. Over sparse, Salavation Army percussion, singer "Benjamin" croons in a brogue worthy of Pere Ubu's David thomas: "I fell asleep, I fell asleep in love, I fell into a hole." It's not often that you stumble onto a record with as rare and fragile a sense of majesty as the debut from this Atlanta quintet. A serious and depresing work of art, Heaven is both artfully constructed and beautifully orchestrated. It's inevitable that the warbling, throaty-voiced front man/woman "Benjamin" (last sp