TRAUMA SPARKS NEW SOUND FOR MARKET JUNCTION
You know how sometimes you’re having a fight at home, and so you walk out of the door to clear your head for a bit? If you just never stopped and wandered out into the unknown, then Market Junction’s third album, “Burning Bridges,” would be your soundtrack.
The Houston band has been a fairly successful country dance hall act for years, but the members recently found themselves wanting to get away from that designation in favor of a more Americana approach. That’s wonderfully apparent on “Burning Bridges,” to be released Aug. 7, which comes across much more like a lost classic album from the late ’60s than the electric honkytonk sound that’s so prevalent these days.
“We had spent our formative years as a band believing we had to fit into the Red Dirt country scene,” says frontman Matt Parrish. “We loved a lot of the people and venues, but we don’t belong on those stages. We’re walking away from all the things about ourselves that we’re realizing just aren’t true.”
According to the band, “Burning Bridges” is a record born out of trauma, including ER visits, broken hearts and divorces.
“If you work hard on that, you can get a good couple records out of a divorce,” says Parrish with chagrin.
“Burning Bridges” opens almost hesitantly with “When Your Heart Begins to Ache.” Full of lyrical Alanis Morissette-style ironies, it’s sung like a person whispering terrible truths about their life that they are only now starting to realize. From there, it’s an album about journeying through dusty streets and across the country from Texas to the West Coast.
“We have all had situations where our lives were turned upside down,” says Parrish. “When you go through trauma, home is less about geography and more about the people you have chosen to go through life with. Without them, you feel lost, displaced. You can hit play, saddle up with this character and walk on where you’re going.”
It’s a sad record, no doubt. Though there are some happy moments and a few tracks that feel more like adventures than a penitent’s pilgrimage, the slow pace and mournful vocals make it clear to a listener that this is a pain exhibition. It’s bleak, but pleasantly so. Nothing proves that better than the way it ends.
The title track is a marvel and easily the most musically daring song on the album. It offers more physical release than the rest of “Burning Bridges” but no catharsis. Guitarist Justin Lofton really gets to show off his skill in understated but powerful lines, and tops the whole thing off with an effect created by having him scream into his guitar’s pickups. Having walked with this character over the course of 10 songs, it doesn’t have a satisfying end like traditional concept albums. It’s just another stop on the road to hell.
“By the end of the record, there’s no resolution,” says Lofton. “He’s estranged and going crazy on the West Coast. He’s just screaming out into the night. I don’t know where he goes. Eventually, he’ll go somewhere. Maybe we’ll find out on another album.”