Leave Ruin
(La Société Expéditionnaire)
Rating: 4.4 of 5
La Société Expéditionnaire just continues to take great chances, and as a result, we’ve all been rewarded with some beautiful, contemplative avant folk records. The label, established in 2006 by Lewis & Clarke’s Lou Rogai, offers a few more titles each and every year—including this bonny debut from Timothy Showalter aka Strand of Oaks.
Salvaging what he could from a fire that took his house and all his possessions; Showalter borrowed a guitar and traipsed the city streets of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, writing plaintive songs of self-vindication and mourning from hotel rooms and park benches. A failed relationship behind him, along with everything else, Showalter composed himself and released the Pyrrhic victory Leave Ruin. What we have here are the doleful expressions and candid retellings of a man who enduringly suffered; having lost so many things in his world, both tangible and intangible.
Heart-stricken and carnal confessions, such as “New Paris” or “Sister Evangeline”, capture the sense of torment Showalter has undergone, punctuated by vulnerable guitars and subtle piano touches. “Two Kids” is a short revealing tale of humble petition—performed on a lone guitar apposed by banjo. A gentle Hammond organ keeps “Mourning Worker” nice and calm amid twangy electric guitar phrasings. “End In Flames” and the record-titled last selection, two of the tenderer ballads volunteered for the album, stand tall as bookends on both sides.
Intimately effusive at times, but all the while serving to convey the palpable emotion, Leave Ruin remains irrefutably genuine—a stirring exorcism from the deepest chambers of the heart.
End In Flames - Strand of Oaks
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