In a world populated by meh-rate bar bands, Shuford and his crack
quartet are our best saloon band: Put on After Hours, Shuford’s
second album as D. Charles Speer but his first with the Helix, and
you’ll have trouble not thinking of dusty roads, big skies
and rye whiskey served in bottles marked xx. ...sure to be one of
the finest local albums released this year. - Mike Wolf, Time
Out NY (5 out of 6 stars)
...here's
where the "old, weird America" is typically invoked. Nine
times out of 10, the phrase Greil Marcus made famous is utterly
inapplicable. However, D. Charles Speer's hidden-in-plain-sight
aesthetic, its facility for making the familiar strange (and deserving
of closer scrutiny) is exactly what Marcus was on about when he
pointed in wonder at "the mystical body of the republic, a
kind of public secret...a declaration of a weird but clearly recognizable
America within the America of the exercise of institutional majoritarian
power." So shine a light, lift a rock: this weird secret deserves
to be known. - Amy Granzin, Pitchfork (7.6)
The
dozen tracks on After Hours are towering, touching and
aggressively bold. It’s
the sort of non-country that could be spliced into early ’70s
films like Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller or
Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo and seem wonderfully juxtaposed...
one
of 2008’s summertime essentials. - Eric Weddle, Dusted
Magazine
It
feels natural to salute this record, with its veteran songwriting,
as a new classic; After Hours is not only a solidly executed
take on the timeless Southern rock sound, it is a heartfelt labor
of love recorded over four years that acts as a panacea for almost
a decade of soul-less boy-man hipster folk that bafflingly still
clogs the Brooklyn club circuit. - Other Music, NYC
...a
rockin' slab of cosmic country boogie that makes Commander Cody
sound like Brad Paisley. It's dense, fuzzy, and dripping in an ominously
psychedelic reverb reminiscent of "Jesus Shooting Heroin"–era
Flaming Lips. - Justin Farrar, Village Voice
After
Hours is an album that reeks of smoke shrouded oak interiors
and bearded men. Shuford’s darkbrown baritone as an anchor
while The Helix cook up a tasteful melange of welcome-to-the-dark-side
countryrock complete with moody piano solo’s and twanging
guitarstrings. While most of these guys normally do their utmost
best to be as unpredictable as possible in their experimental outlets,
here they excel in frivolous but tight playing, which results in
the most satisfying classic rock predictability around these days.
- Joris Heemskerk, Foxy Digitalis
...a
pretty major work for the first quarter of 2008. We've heard the
(supposedly) psychedelic approach applied to folk and singer/songwriter
music plenty in these last couple years (with many hitting the mark,
true), but has anybody really applied it to country/western/bluegrass
music besides Mr. Speer? Does anybody else really need to? - Blogstitude
Unlike
Some Forgotten Country with its smiling face, After
Hours is the punch that will knock out those pearly whites
with little remorse. If Shuford’s first effort was to make
nice with his self-proclamation that country was forgotten, this
is when the niceties have run their course and the truth is revealed
in the harsh light of day. In other words, After Hours
is rowdy, ornery, slobberknocked. - EVP
Record
of the month is D Charles Speer and The Helix’s handsomely
packaged After Hours LP on the newly minted Black Dirt
label... offering up the kind of psychedelic Bakersfield stew you
always hope you’ll be lucky enough to procure from one of
our nation’s truck stops, though ol’ Red Sovine never
sang lyrics like “Don’t ever say ‘man I’ll
never’ / Lest I mark your back with my braided leather.”
The Helix, for their part, is a backing band worthy of envy, their
dustbowl gallop is the perfect accompaniment to Speer’s surrealist
trucker boogie... they exhibit all the spunk and confidence of a
Muscle Shoals family reunion. Not bad for a bunch of city boys.
Still, Speer is clearly the star here... (his) baritone belies a
stoic sort of ‘seen it all’ weariness not found on many
records produced north of the bible belt or more recently than the
Nixon administration. - JJ Toth, Your Flesh
The
feel of the territory is still pretty much dominated by the kind
of men-with-no-name country downs previously trafficked by strangers
like Townes Van Zandt, Steve Young, Leonard Cohen and Michael Hurley
but the settings are a goddamn treat, combining the kind of laconic
drug-bruised energy of The Stones circa Exile On Main Street
with some endless, hypnotic steel shapes and the kind of cracked
vocalese that would bridge hillbilly phrasing with hiccupping avant
garde style. Haven’t heard a record that so convincingly crosses
folk forms with a deep understanding of the joys of pure sound-as-sound
since, uh, the first US Saucer album? Terry’s Rovji?
Recommended. - Volcanic Tongue
The title of After Hours brings to mind last call
bar bands and the smell of stale beer in the nostrils and D. Charles
and the Helix bring every bit of that into the music on this record.
You can feel the beer soaked wood under your hands and the claustrophobic
clutch of cigarettes at the back of your throat. Shuford has proven
himself as not only a singular entity in his post NNCK days but
also a great American songwriter. - Raven Sings the Blues
