This came out in 2001 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
WHO THEY ARE: Chapel Hill, N.C., quartet Trailer Bride are fronted by singer-songwriter Melissa Swingle, who plays, guitar, banjo, harmonica and saw — and sings with the same world-weary intensity as Exene Cervenka from X.
WHAT THIS IS: The band’s fourth album High Seas is a rough-riding slate of 13 vaguely creepy Southern Gothic anthems about the ghost of Mae West, shipboard adventure, crickets, love and death — all rendered in twisted roots tones and blacker-than-black moods.
HIGHLIGHTS: Each of these goose-pimply tunes is memorable in its own way, but I’m kind of partial to the romantic ditty Itchin’ For You, which likens love to insect infestation.
C&W CRED: Truly, Trailer Bride are a band that puts the alt in alt-country. LAST WORDS: You got a real purty mouth, boy.
