Billy Strings
“Turmoil and Tinfoil”
Apostol Recording Company
Billy Strings. It takes a lot of nerve to adopt such a nom de plume (in this case nom de guerre might be more appropriate) in the bluegrass world, but Billy Strings is up to the challenge, and more.
Billy Strings (real name William Apostol) grew up in Minnesota, surrounded by musicians. He’s a fourth-generation picker. He lives up to his name. Preternaturally talented, Strings embraces bluegrass instrumentation but brings a powerful energy to his music. He’s one of those musicians who packs a fuse and volatile sonic substance with his performance kit; sooner or later, the fuse ignites and bluegrass combusts into a fearsome, driving sound.
Some artists have difficulty transmuting their energy to the recorded medium. Not so Billy Strings. From the opening sequence of “On The Line” (“you can’t stop us…”), “Turmoil and Tinfoil” presents a hard-driving, breakneck pace of life and carrying on. It’s great fun.
Billy Strings can play the guitar, really well, and really fast. His vocals are in the lower tenor range, but are strong, assured and delivered with purpose. He relocated to Nashville a couple of years ago, but before going on the road to support this album he was a notorious jam-joiner with whatever band happened to be in the same place as him. He’s confident, for good reason. From all evidence, he’s not met a riff that was his match.
Strings’ father, Terry Barber, collaborates on “These Memories of You”, the album’s penultimate cut. Uber-guitarist Bryan Sutton trades licks with Strings on “Salty Sheep”. Glenn Brown, who has experience with Greensky Bluegrass in harnessing the whirlwind, does fine work here, and Strings’ backing band is right there with him. But, “Turmoil and Tinfoil” is Billy Strings, foremost, with a mix of traditional threads and breakaway improvisation.
Billy String’s milieu is hard driving, hard living, not genteel, workingman’s America. He has a bite to his lyrics. (See, for example, the album’s title cut) This is not granddaddy’s bluegrass music, nor even Dad’s. It’s beautiful, terrifying and full throttle playing.