SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: BARRETT DAVIS – THE BALLAD OF AESOP FIN

Barrett Davis
The Ballad Of Aesop Fin
Independent

Being an artist that wants to explore all the aspects of a certain genre that very often operates within strict rules and music formulas can be a tall order even for seasoned musicians, let alone artists that are coming out with a debut album. That is exactly what Asheville, North Carolina’s Barret Davis is attempting with his debut album The Ballad of Aesop Fin.

Very often, the key in such an undertaking is not to try to do things in a radical manner in a first attempt but to bring in a mixture of familiar sounds and re-arrange them in an unconventional manner and do that with your lyrics too.

It could still be a thorny and sticky route, but Barrett manages it admirably doing exactly that, combining familiar Americana musical elements in not always their usual order and at the same time giving his lyrics a different take than standard country radio material.

“Aesop Fin is a mythical character, raised in the woods. His dad is a moonshine runner, his mother nowhere to be found,” Davis says. “Aesop finds a lover and ends up getting killed in a gambling incident, then she ends up tumbling into a waterfall—it’s symbolic of the vicious cycle of tragedies in these mountains of Appalachia.”

It sounds like something Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy would be writing and singing about, but Barrett does give his story and tunes a more standard foil and comes out of it completely unscathed.

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