 
Jeffrey Foucault
Stripping Cane
Signature
Sounds
Reviewed by Adam Sterling
There is nothing
about Jeffrey Foucault’s new record, Stripping Cane, that gives the
slightest hint it is only his second record. From the writing to the guitar work
to the production, everything on this record seems as if it is coming from an
old hand’s purview.
The mid-paced song,
“Cross of Flowers,” opens the record with the narrator returning to his
hometown, which has been steadily deteriorating since he left: “There’s a
cross of flowers at the roadside/Where some fool bought it two years
back/There’s an orchard gone to hell/Beside a burned out one room shack…I’m
coming home.”
Stripping Cane continues down every possible road in
Americana, from murder ballad (the haunting “Doubletree”) to acoustic blues
(“Mayfly,” “4&20 Blues”) to an uplifting cover of Creedance Clearwater
Revival’s “Lodi.”
“There’s no more
room for angels/To dance or even stand/Upon this pin entangled/Bleeding sugar
from our hands” begins the album’s title track, as it tells of the sorrow of
a relationship spiraling downward, and does it to perfection, making the
listener feel every emotion.
“Northbound 35”
follows, painting an image of the narrator driving for miles to get to his
love’s home. The chorus subtly grabs you, making sure not to explicitly jump
for your attention, but to acquire it through its slow crescendo. The song
seems to give a glimmer of hope about love, but Foucault dashes that hope
into a million pieces when he sings “I never even kissed your mouth/When we
said goodbye” before the final sweeping chorus.
Producer David
“Goody” Goodrich undercuts the songs with acoustic and electric guitars,
mandolin, banjo, diddley bow, drums, lap steel, and fiddle, while somehow aptly
maintaining a sparse feel to the record; Foucault’s deep rich baritone adds a
distinctive feel to each song, further bringing the feel of an old soul’s
travails to the album.
Whereas the opening
track was a song about coming home, the final track on the record, “Every New
Leaf Over,” is a song about leaving it behind. The last lines of the record
“And so tonight I saw the orchard south of town/And it came to me that I’ll
be leaving soon/Oh and though it hurts me/Still I know that lilac wind/Is
rolling every new leaf over/Every new leaf over/Every new leaf over into
bloom” make us wonder where Foucault will take us next.
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