The debut self-titled album from Cut, Split & Delivered is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It has a tendency to come off as being an entirely organic endeavour; wrought in earnest with a passion for the kind of music the band want to hear. In that regard, the Cut, Split & Delivered is inherently folk music, without necessarily being folk music.
But hidden amongst the nostalgia-drenched storytelling of Cut, Split & Delivered are some powerful grooves that grab you when least expected.
Recorded over the last year at Comstock Recording Studios in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the twelve-song debut from the six-piece “Americana-influenced” rock band covers a lot of ground. Perhaps that’s the inevitable outcome of a band with six members who have played together for so long. There are elements to the album that might ordinarily seem a touch incongruous… if they didn’t work so well in practice.
“We have played together a long time and these emotion-driven songs represent who we are as a band,” says Cut, Split & Delivered’s Wanda Baxter. “They are about heartbreak and overcoming, they’re about wanting to get out of town and wanting a brand new record to play. They’re about being wrong most of the time, and the lap of luxury moving in, and they’re about dealing with pain, and loss, and trying for a life we wouldn’t want to change. Sometimes, they’re just about the jam.”
The opening track, “Too Close To Run,” is a gentle ease into the album, relating the slippery slope of attempting to ease into a relationship. But the Americana-powered tune proves to be a slippery slope itself and by the third act, the rug is being pulled out from under us by bass player Stewart Franck with a side of Rick Charron’s congas. All of a sudden we’re left wondering where this jam band has come from or if we’re experiencing flashbacks to that last Rusted Root show.
Bruce Jollymore’s vocals here seem like an innocent lure into something wholly unexpected but ultimately provides the dichotomy of a folk groove sustained throughout the album.
“Dusty Roads” immediately follows with Wanda Baxter taking a turn at the mic, giving it her all for the big sunshine rock and roll sound of the ’70s for their ode to the inherently nostalgic rural backside of New Brunswick’s Kingstone Penninsula. Once again, it’s not long before the song is carried off by a blistering guitar solo. Similarly “Brand New Record” opens like a tune from Peter Youngtree, Newfoundland’s heir to Ron Hynes’ lyrical throne, before suddenly switching gears to channel big Van Halen “Panama” energy—provided you could marry that concept to a folk band with a horn section.
“Things Feel Different” offers up Randy Colwell’s “dog-running-down-the-beach” solo, framed in a song about the uncomfortable restlessness we’ve collectively experienced over the last two years, but in a style that probably would have satisfied The Smiths, with Wanda Baxter stepping in for Morrissey.
At mid-point in the album, we take a hard left into a mandolin-driven boot-stompin’ murder ballad. “Blood On The Ground” would be a standout track on the album, if Cut, Split & Delivered weren’t already quite so versatile. It’s surprising we don’t have whiplash.
As Baxter explains, much of the material on the album was written “collectively”, which is to say that one person will often crack out the bones of each song, before everyone else piles on with a jam, adding their own parts in the process. As a result, it seems like the end product is arrived at democratically, or, at least, meritocratically, There’s a clear tendency to give the instrumentalists their time to shine. Fortunately, rather than an uneven conglomeration, the album really does shine with its abundance of licks and solos. That initial impression of Cut, Split & Delivered as a folksy barn-raiser, excelling in breathing fresh air into music best suited to yesteryear, is quickly turned on its head. With the band going hard into blues territory on “Asteroid,” the album’s closing track, it’s clear that they’re impossible to pin down.
Whatever Cut, Split & Delivered are doing—beyond evading definition—it is easy to get lost in those grooves. If they wanted to showcase their versatility, they have definitely succeeded, but it might be best to think of them as a jam band, plus a variety of accoutrements. We just need to catch them at 2:00 AM on a Saturday to confirm.