Shovels & Rope Get Intimate, and Topical, on 'Manticore'

If you've ever seen Shovels & Rope in concert, you know one thing about them; it's impossible to be in a room (or a field, as is often the case with these festival regulars) with them and not catch at least a little of the dynamic optimism that rolls off the stage and into the audience. But, to crib a line from Thomas Paine, these are the times that try men's souls, and Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst could be forgiven if the bloom fell off even their extremely bright rose. But that isn't the case on Manticore, the duo's seventh album.

Any concerns about the pandemic blues turning Shovels & Rope into an Americana emo group is shattered by Manticore's opening track, “Domino.” A rapid fire, stream of consciousness song filled with '50s and '60s pop culture references, you're so caught up in the flood that you don't notice the song doesn't make much sense until it's over and by then you don't care. It's fitting they name check Dylan here because “Domino” has a “Subterranean Homesick Blues” on Red Bull feel.

That's not to say the pandemic hasn't affected the band. Like most of us, all that time alone (although the upside of being a married duo is that you're locked down with your band) brought about some introspection and more than a little appreciation for any good they can find. “Bleed Me” is a stripped down ode to the couple's two children. Lines like “you are the best part of this fool heart” could veer into Chicken Soup for the Soul territory in less skilled hands, but here just lean further into the no-frills DIY ethos that has been the duo's calling card throughout.

Manticore also contains the most direct social commentary the band has ever delivered. “Collateral Damage” finds Hearst playing the part of a mother who is desperately, and increasingly futilely, trying to hold on to even a shred of identity that isn't wife or mother. “They say you better learn to be a good wife and make everyone a comfortable life. I'm trapped in a wheel like a circus mouse, banging on the windows of my glass house,” Hearst croons as the song's protagonist “crawled out of my skin and started over.”

The meaning of identity is a bit of a theme on Manticore. A highlight track is “Anchor.” Oddball character studies are Shovels & Rope's greatest strength (“Mary Ann and One-Eyed Dan”, “Ohio”) and here it takes a darker turn as Lillie, an “educated actress” who “has a job waiting tables but makes her money on the mattress” fights against the identity issued to her by her hometown but eventually determines to be whatever small change she can for the misfits to come. “I might not make it out but I can try and make it better.”

Another high point is “No Man's Land.” Shovels & Rope certainly isn't the first band to use the famed WWI “Christmas Truce” to shine a light on the commonality of soldiers on each side of “No Man's Land.” Just a few months ago Swedish power metal giants Sabaton put their own spin on it. likely the first and last time those two bands will be connected. But, like most tropes, it's used for a reason. The visual of British and German soldiers kicking a football around and trading food and cigarettes where just hours before young men on both sides charged and died is a powerful one. Unlike Sabaton's sweeping overview, Shovels & Rope wisely zeroes in on two people, a British soldier watching his brother dying (or going insane, it's much the same here) and a German “teenage soldier” who approaches him under a flag of truce. “Comrade rendezvous because like you wish to be back home.” As the prospect of another Cold War with Russia looms, it helps to remember that politicians sow conflict but send kids to do the dirty work.

I would imagine the pandemic had an effect on Shovels & Rope, both as working musicians and as parents. But the put aside any despair that might have crept in and deliver a musical booster against hopelessness. Serious and silly, heart racing and heartbreaking, pain and small pleasures all play amiably like those soldiers in “No Man's Land” on Manticore. It's far too early to start looking at year end best of lists but Shovels & Rope has already set the bar, delivering a perfectly timed slice of goodness in uniquely uncertain times.