Bare

Album Review

Bare is a sort of "when in Rome" project for the Boston-based roots and country rock outfit Swinging Steaks. The band's high-energy electric firepower and their slight Nashville twang has always made them a bit of an anomaly in a town that has acquired a reputation as the nation's capitol of contemporary folk music. So it's tempting to speculate that their fourth album — a virtually unedited recording of an unplugged, wholly acoustic live performance at one of Boston's many folk clubs, the Olde Vienna Kaffeehaus — might be an attempt to demonstrate that the Steaks are just as adept as their mellow neighbors at exciting an audience without any 20th century technology. Which isn't to say that they've toned things down any. Introducing the band at the beginning of the concert, the Olde Vienna's Robert Haigh effuses "it is a real pleasure to welcome these guys to our stage 'cause [with them] things tend to get a little rowdy and in a folk club that's a nice change of pace." Things do indeed get rowdy. The singing and songwriting duo of Tim Giovanniello and Jamie Walker lead the Steaks on a crackling acoustic romp through many of their best numbers — "Saddle Up," "Own Worst Enemy," "This High," "Suicide at the Wishing Well" — as well as a spirited rendition of Tom Van Zandt's "White Freightliner Blues" that takes full advantage of Jim Gambino's red hot honky tonk piano playing. This record is naturally a little less polished than the Steaks' studio recordings, but they make up for the occasional fits of over-singing and the odd missed note with heaping doses of good old-fashioned fun.