''Wide Swing Tremolo'' is the third studio album by alternative country band

Son Volt Son Volt is an American rock band formed in 1994 by Jay Farrar after the breakup of Uncle Tupelo. The band's current line-up consists of Farrar (vocals, guitar), Andrew DuPlantis (bass guitar), John Horton (guitar), Mark Patterson (drums), and Ma ...

. It was released in 1998 on

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

. The album peaked at No. 93 on the ''Billboard'' 200.

Production

The album was recorded in

Millstadt, Illinois Millstadt is a village in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States, located at the crossing of Illinois Routes 163 (locally, "Jefferson Avenue") and 158 (locally, "Washington Avenue"). The village is known for its German heritage, with more th ...

, at the band's rehearsal space. It was produced by the band and engineered by

David Barbe David Barbe (pronounced ˈbɑɹ.bi BAR-bee; born September 30, 1963) is an American musician and producer/engineer from Athens, Georgia and director of the Music Business Certificate Program at the University of Georgia. He is chief of Chase Pa ...

Critical reception

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

'' wrote that "many of the songs ... return to the power and purity of the band’s brilliant 1995 debut, ''Trace''. ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

'' called the album "genuinely mediocre," writing that "the flourishes that had initially made Son Volt uncanny had transgressed into stale formula." The ''

Tucson Weekly The ''Tucson Weekly'' is an alternative newsweekly that was founded in 1984 by Douglas Biggers and Mark Goehring, and serves the Tucson, Arizona, metropolitan area of about 1,000,000 residents. The paper is a member of the Association of Alte ...

'' wrote that "the songs retain Farrar's downcast approach, but they're extremely well-written this time around; and the band seems to have been reinvigorated, putting a little more into their performances than the cultivated ennui we've become accustomed to."

Track listing

All songs written by

Jay Farrar Jay Farrar (born December 26, 1966) is an American songwriter and musician currently based in St. Louis. A member of two critically acclaimed music groups, Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, he began his solo music career in 2001. Beyond his estab ...

. # "Straightface" - 3:02 # "Driving the View" - 2:57 # "Jodel" - 0:41 # "Medicine Hat" - 4:12 # "Strands" - 5:06 # "Flow" - 2:18 # "Dead Man's Clothes" - 2:46 # "Right on Through" - 3:08 # "Chanty" - 1:27 # "Carry You Down" - 3:28 # "Question" - 4:00 # "Streets That Time Walks" - 5:24 # "Hanging Blue Side" - 3:41 # "Blind Hope" - 3:17

Personnel

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

s, lead vocals,

Chamberlin The Chamberlin is an electro-mechanical keyboard instrument that was a precursor to the Mellotron. It was developed and patented by the American inventor Harry Chamberlin from 1949 to 1956, when the first model was introduced. There are several ...

organ, acoustic and

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

pianos,

dulcimer The word dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments. Hammered dulcimers The word ''dulcimer'' originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of ...

, harmonica * Dave Boquist - guitars, lap steel guitar, fiddle,

viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

* Jim Boquist - bass,

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

, slide guitar (4), piano (7) *

Mike Heidorn Mike Heidorn, born 1967 in Belleville, Illinois, is the former drummer and founding member of alternative country bands Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt. Heidorn also played with the Uncle Tupelo precursors the Primitives (or ) and the one-off band Co ...

- drums,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

* Eric Heywood - pedal steel guitar (13, 14) * Dave Barbe - Kenyan rattle (13)

References

Son Volt albums 1998 albums Warner Records albums {{1990s-country-album-stub