REVIEW: Route 3 — Cartersville (SINGLE)
The deep common bonds shared by the members of Route 3 are a big reason why their music has such obvious lasting value. It pushes them towards achieving significance with their music instead of contenting themselves with garden variety bluegrass. “Cartersville” is the band’s new single and reflects the quartet’s complete familiarity with bluegrass tradition while, as well, steering listeners toward the personal component in their music.
URL: https://route3bluegrass.com/
Distinctive yet recognizable characters populate the narrative. The story Route 3 tells couldn’t have higher stakes and the songwriting conveys everything with measured language. Specificity helps make the cut even more vivid. Route 3’s vocals never overexaggerate the expected rural tone of the music and, instead, play the song’s drama with a matter of fact slant that accentuates its dramatic qualities. Incorporating outright dialogue into the lyrics could fall flat, but those lines rank among the track’s most convincing moments. It’s especially effective during the song’s “climax”.
I love the sophisticated yet traditional balance Route 3 reaches. “Cartersville” has an ever-elusive timelessness you can’t help but hear from the beginning. Its lack of artifice stands out as well. You aren’t going to “fake” this style of music, there’s no meaningful financial reward for it, and Route 3’s single has the unquestionable ring of musicians fully invested in their work.
Their vocals reflect that investment. They boast an underlying relaxed eloquence that lulls listeners through the song’s melody and delivers you to each of its climactic moments. It is singing that inspires confidence from the first note on. Route 3’s vocals never have to bray or put on any sort of heavy-handed affectations to pull listeners into their web.
The song’s fiddle playing is one of its highlights. Route 3 uses the instrument as an additional “vocalist” without its contributions ever overshadowing the singers. Banjo plays a pivotal role, of course, in the track and announces its presence early on, but the production keeps an even hand on the sound. There’s no self-conscious gimmicky applied to the sound in an attempt to give it misguided authenticity and a perfect accord between the instruments.
They don’t throw listeners any musical curve balls, really, but they aren’t opposed to tweaking the arrangement. Such touches don’t transform the music in any game-changing way. Route 3 is about personal expression and affirming tradition without being a slave to it, but I expect their music to evolve. Their skill affords them the necessary space to put over any message and storytelling is only one of several ways they can work.
SMART LINK: https://sc.lnk.to/R3cv-s
It’s a memorable experience, however. “Cartersville” will bewitch any serious Americana fan and the concrete details rife throughout the song are difficult to shake. They certainly aren’t the only band out there releasing this sort of material, but Route 3 does it in a way that’s all their own. It carves out a small but meaningful niche in a story reaching back well over a century. Doing it while retaining their own voice makes such an accomplishment even sweeter.
Colin Jordan
