I'm a few months late on Anaïs Mitchell's recent Hadestown album, which is unsurprising really considering the low-key nature of its arrival in April. Neither was it a release that would have caught my eye in the first place: i'd never heard of Mitchell before, rarely listen to folk and have a limited knowledge at best of the Greek myths. The critical response it garnered from those who did pay it some attention was anything other than low-key however, with universal applause directed its way. . On the back of the overwhelmingly positive reviews however, it would have been wrong to have avoided it any longer.
Mitchell has enlisted an ensemble cast including Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Greg Brown, Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown and Ben Knox Miller (The Low Anthem), with each giving voice to a different character in the story. The result neatly avoids any of the ridiculous excesses that blight many a supergroup or concept album. Instead, the piece comes together quite wonderfully, aided by Michael Chorney's scoring, and a true story, or odyssey, unravels.
The songs work both together and on their own, tracks such as When the Chips Are Down making fine stand-alone singles. The aforementioned song, featuring the Haden Triplets, is a wonderful, skronking, soulful hoe-down that demands a sing-along from the first listen. But don't stop there (or start there even), play it through whole, and then do so again, and again. On an album as rich and deep as this there's always more to uncover, and plenty to savour multiple times.
Now go and check it out on Spotify, or buy it.
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