Audry’s Old Bed – Tragedy On Dogpound Road

Audry’s Old Bed
Tragedy On Dogpound Road
Independent

Audry’s Old Bed already has quite an interesting history for being a fairly new alternative-folk father-son duo. John and Kyle Herbert are the founders of the group and were based in pre-Katrina New Orleans. Shortly before Katrina, they invited some of their musician friends, such as Eddie Ecker, Tom Maron, and Beth Patterson, to join them at ground floor productions in St. Bernard parish to record a full-length album. Like most of St. Bernard after Katrina, the studio was completely destroyed along with the master tracks for “Tragedy On Dogpound Road.” Luckily there were a few mixed and mastered copies of the album floating around, and the project was finally completed in 2007.

The album is a collection of heartfelt folk songs with earnest and enduring lyrics. The opener, “Cannonball,” begins with soft acoustic guitar strumming along a harmonica melody line, which gives way to John Herbert’s Springsteen inspired vocal howl, “I want to follow you into some kind of forgotten midnight dream | my god knows just what I mean | and I’ve been shot through the night like a cannonball.” The album does lack a bit in terms of diversity. Many of the songs have the same guitar tone and similar song structure.

The last two tracks are a bit more experimental, however. “Signals” has a darker production and features some exceptional theremin work, while “Shining Path” was written solely by Kyle Herbert and features a haunting ending with sirens and moog synthesizer sounds. “Tragedy On Dogpound Road” is a warm album that recalls floating down a muddy Louisiana swap on one of those sultry summer nights.

- Richard Giraldi

Originally published in OffBeat October 2007