Time Out New York / Issue 542: February 16–22, 2006

Album review

The Mammals

Departure
(Signature Sounds)

On last year’s Why Should the Fire Die?, the twentysomethings in California trio Nickel Creek succeeded at the tricky task of making bluegrass music sound youthful and sexy. The Mammals, five young roots-music believers from Woodstock, aim to do something equally difficult on Departure, their latest record: make room in their traditionally based material for up-to-the-minute political commentary, the sort inspired by singer Tao Rodriguez-Seeger’s grandfather, the legendary folk rabble-rouser Pete Seeger. (If the music ends up sounding youthful and sexy in the process, you get the impression the Mammals wouldn’t mind.)

The real triumph on Departure—an album mellow enough in tone to make the word triumph seem inappropriate—is that the Mammals voice their decided discontent so prettily. The opening song, “Follow Me to Carthage,” is the album’s most outspoken: Michael Merenda, one of the band’s three singers, charges the powers that be with “fabricating outlaws” and asks why we’re not “astounded by what they’ve done in our names.” It’s not just President Bush and his cronies he’s after: “Don’t believe the headlines,” Merenda warns, before wondering if the New York Times is “wined and dined by private advertisements.” Yet the rolling folk-pop groove that anchors the tune seems lifted from Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”; unlike so much protest music these days, there’s nothing shrill about it. With one exception—an ill-advised cover of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are”—Departure exudes mild magic.—Mikael Wood

The Mammals play Joe’s Pub Sat 18.