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 Caught in the Carousel "There will be music despite everything"
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Gabriel Sullivan
By the Dirt
Fell City
"Nobody cares what happens underground," sings Gabriel Sullivan on his debut album By The Dirt. Nobody, that is, except for Mr. Sullivan himself, who is so concerned with the subterranean, the disposed and the forgotten, that he comes across as a roots rock undertaker, whistling through the graveyard as he does his nightly work. And what work it is—with a ferocious delivery that recalls everyone from Tom Waits to 16 Horsepower's David Eugene Edwards, this Tucson native presides over each number with the commanding authority of a man who's only seen it all because he's lived it all and written the reports in his dirty, bloody journal he keeps buried in the backyard under the apple tree. A varied collection of ramshackle stomp ("God's Filling Station"), indie gospel ("Dillinger's Wings") and tenderhearted folk ("The Gardens") By The Dirt is rife with immediacy, emotion and the sounds of veins opening and closing in dark alleys of forgotten streets. Elsewhere, "Junkman Blues" is a bone-rattling blast of gothic blues that finds Sullivan declaring that he plays the "skeleton marimba"; "Me & The Dog" is a boozy carnival rave-up and "House Built On Love" is an affecting duet between Sullivan and the sweet-throated Brittany Dawn. These are songs about love and the night and the way we shiver through memories, but these are also about tipping the bottle to the wobbly miles of a life lived right down to the bone.
—Alex Green
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