In this age of file-sharing and do-it-yourself promos, the sovereign power of cover art has been greatly reduced. Having already suffered the indignity of being shrunken from glorious gatefold vinyl to pocket-sized jewel case, cover art now faces complete extinction by blank-disc proliferation, no longer holding the suggestive power of artfully assembled graphic design.

Increasingly taking its place is a sort of creative inverse of the former relationship, whereby the music leads the listener to project his/her own imagined cover art-- what squiggly doodle will accompany this new lo-fi indie-pop release, what moody black-and-white photograph might adorn this shoegazer LP, and so forth. Playing this game, the first minute of Holopaw's self-titled debut almost immediately conjured up images of wood paneling, being my default alt-country image response. When I finally got my criminal hands on a legit copy of Holopaw, the wood-paneling spine was third-bear just right, soothing confirmation of my subconscious meteorology.

But don't be fooled by the standard old-timey exterior, nor by the seemingly straightforward indie-folk surface of the songs. That bold 8+ rating up yonder would not be an acceptable endorsement were the five gentlemen of Holopaw as predictable as their album art; rather, their specialty is in the skilled peppering of their Tupelo-derived sound with modern and unusual peculiarities.

Take that wood-paneling-suggestive opening track, "Abraham Lincoln", which starts off like Country Song #4623 from shaggy-hairs armed with resale western-style button-downs and a copy of Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Featuring little more than Ugly Casanova collaborator and Holopaw frontman John Orth's porch-strummed acoustic and light-twang vocals, the disc prematurely convinces that Holopaw aspire to little more than a capsule review towards the back of No Depression. But by the time the track reaches its fully fleshed end, the party's been crashed by jarring synthesizer chirps and a hissy, quiet drum machine loop, Nigel Godrich producing Woody Guthrie in a time machine phonebooth.

[We briefly interrupt this review for the obligatory timely war reference. I'm compelled to mention that the lyric "pale green light/ Vibrates across the Abraham Lincoln" is now forever tied into footage of planes taking off from the USS Abraham Lincoln nautical metropolis, which using the beloved "night-vision" lens, takes on a, yep, pale green cast. Goddamn this infernal war seeping into the peaceful sanctity of rock crit!]

The rest of Holopaw's almost-too-brief ten tracks are similarly deceptive, roots-rock at heart but with a tendency to take sudden turns of arrangement and instrumentation. Godspell-quotin' "Igloo Glass", fr'instance, has the quick-stepping pace and mandolin plucks of classic bluegrass, evoking, as such rhythms often do, images of steam engines and overalls. Any tired O Brother references are made moot, however, by a brush-trapped drum beat that's repeatedly faded in and out of the mix, and bounced between channels by whip-smart producer Brian Deck.

With Southern music trapped too often within strict constructs of genre definition and Golden Age fetishism, Holopaw defiantly eschew Ludditism to great effect. "Hoover" and "Cinders" each ride on a warm Rhodes buzz, the latter adding a jalopy horn section full of dissonant clash; the impeccably structured and moving "Teacup Woozy" benefits from a low keyboard rumble beneath its classic folktale of travel and woe. And yet no song is so weighted down with studio trickery that the band loses its Everglades identity, anchored as they are by Orth's unfaked swamp warble and lyrical lyrics (tellingly organized as prose in the liners).

By now you're probably just begging for a comparison to those other recent country-educated embracers of technology, Wilco, and public servant that I am, I'll oblige. If Yankee Hotel Foxtrot becomes the figurehead of a genre offshoot, Holopaw would certainly make the appropriate Tower Records listening booth, Americonica that it is. But Holopaw most embodies the rather exciting state of roots-rock/alt-country/bumpkin indie, which has finally gotten over the fear of ruining "authenticity" by using modern tools. Holopaw's cover art and Depression-era script logo might be indie-folk standard issue, but the music contained within is a refreshing, effective new use of the boundaries: a wood-paneled Powerbook.

-Rob Mitchum, March 25th, 2003