New EP From Mat D and the Profane Saints: Brand New Faith

Photo: Charro Badger

About a year ago, I mentioned the band that a friend of mine from junior high and high school is fronting. At the time of that writing, they had an EP out that was a diamond in the rough. It was enjoyable and I looked forward to them refining their craft and seeing where things would go.

Well, I just listened through the new one that came in the mail today and I have to say that Mat and crew have taken that rough chunk of coal, cut and polished it and the resulting EP: Brand New Faith is a much more mature release in nearly every way a collection of music can be.

The song structures are more complex and Mat, while still doing some of that cruising-along-monotone that appropriately drives the song "This Truck Makes More $$$ After Midnight", he is also exploring much more of his tonal and dynamic range on "Bound for Glory".

The EP and the music overall are in that Americana/Roots Rock/Alt Country/Grit/Honky Tonk/Blues Rock/Whatever genre that has been growing over the last few years. The themes tap into some of that same mythology and themes that something like HBO's Carnivale explores. Many of the bits are familiar, including the vocabulary of faith, but with that gritty twist that makes it interesting.

Here's the band's own description of the album:

Voodoo curses, Doomsday Preachers and Truck Stop Transsexuals cross paths. A killer travels down highway 61 only to put his faith in a statue of Jesus while searching for the next 'good time.' A pin-up queen gives her soul to God and breaks the devil’s heart. An outlaw trucker rolls down the back roads of lost love and sin, pulled between the powers of heaven and hell. When you find the Ghosts of Redemption and the long lost lover known as Damnation rolled up like a cowboy's cigarette on the wrong side of the tracks…you’ve found a Brand New Faith.

Overall, it reminds me of bits of Ray Wylie Hubbard and The Legendary Shack Shakers, but unique in its own way. That's a good thing.

If you want to give it a preview, you can hear all of the songs on the band's page. And, if you like what you hear or just want to support independent music from the Midwest, you can pick up the album from CDBaby.