Photo Cred: Dan McMahon
Berry
“Civil Disobedience”
Everything Compromised
Any song that mentions Henry David Thoreau is a song that will grab my attention. I truly love Berry. Their songs start out as straight-forward Americana pop song (well, a little psychedelia in the beginning), but in the middle, there are these changes of rhythm, key, and attitude; funny thing (or amazing), the tone of the song remains. The band consists of MatK, JoeM, PauE, and ShaT. It’s no wonder they’re so tight; they’ve been playing and writing together for fifteen years. After taking a well-deserved break, they reunited in 2014 to:\
record again, this time with few expectations about what might transpire. Gathering in a re-purposed pole barn in rural Kansas, the group picked up as if they had never dropped a beat. After writing and recording the skeletons of 11 songs in four days, the album fell into production limbo for more than two years until producer Paul Klimson (John Legend, Erykah Badu, Kirk Douglas of the Roots) offered his services to help complete the album.The result is a stunning follow-up to Blue Sky, Raging Sun.
All I know, the wait and the work has certainly paid off. “Civil Disobedience” is an amazingly complex and beautiful song that says a hell of a lot. Listen, enjoy, grow.