SOULED AMERICAN - Fe

LP Rough Trade Records 1988
CD Rough Trade Records 1988 with bonus tracks



"Heavy and heartfelt country'n'strychnine from this hard-touring Chicago quartet. Closer to Neil and Graham than Lefty and George, Souled American specializes in low-key grooves that gurgle and bounce with songwriter Joe Adducci's reggae-style lead bass, Jamey Barnard's slapping New Orleans-style drums and Scott Tuma's shimmering rhythm guitar, which sounds like pedal steel but isn't. Sporting the heaviest drawls in all god's country, Adducci and co-writer/vocalist Chris Grigoroff pen original material that sounds like long-lost traditional laments. The first side of Fe (group code for 'feel') focuses on an imagined rural present, while the flip dishes out a world of hurt".
(Richard Gehr, Trouser Press)

"Short for 'feel,' Fe introduced Souled American to the world with what in the end turned out to be their biggest commercial success - and even that was fairly minor in the US indie scene of the time. In terms of quality, though, the quartet were onto something that few bands who followed afterwards - Uncle Tupelo, the Palace Brothers and its innumerable spinoffs, Lambchop, just about the whole No Depression scene of the nineties - could approach. (...) There's a deep twang in the guitars and vocals both, but [Joe] Adducci's stuttering bass suggests something else is afoot, which Fe then proceeded to prove in spades. Whether the deceptively tight r'n'b groove underpinning Field & Stream or the lovely acoustic chimes on a version of the traditional Fisher's Hornpipe, Fe shows the foursome drawing any number of strands together to create a new sound that doesn't feel like a forced fusion".
(Ned Raggett, All-Music Guide)

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