Alex Dupree & The Trapdoor Band - Las Meridanzas

14 months ago, I wrote about Alex Dupree and the Trapdoor Band’s self-titled debut. The album was also my 10th favorite album of 2005.

But that might’ve been a little generous. While I loved the album, it was rough…a little too DIY in the mixing. The album had great songs, and I did factor in Alex’s youth (he was 19 at the time).

So take that album. Then add the fact Alex Dupree spent the last year driving with a friend around the country, soaking it in. Then add studio experience. Life experience. Add depth of sound. And an improved writing sensibility.

You might have something else entirely. You might have what Bob Dylan might’ve sounded like if he’d started 5 years earlier, and hadn’t spent an early career covering folk staples. You might have a masterpiece, book-ended by two rich and thoughtful songs. You might have a thematic feel only the greats can accomplish. You might have the best album of the year.

I only say “might” because I still need more time to process it.

Las Meridanzas, the Trapdoor Band’s 2nd effort, seems effortless. Dupree sings with such humble confidence that it seems damning to even doubt him. He sings with something larger behind him, and it’s something I have a hard time defining if it is not a pure calling. You know, the kind of calling many of us grew up waiting for.

Take the album’s most blistering track, the Tolkien-like-titled “Earth-Mouth”.

I remember the Persian Gulf War though Norman Schwartzkopf trading cards and the tension our heroic Patriot missiles shooting down Scuds. Alex is at least 4 years younger than me, but the first segment of of “Earth-Mouth” recalls the war this way:

My feet were made of clay at home my mother stayed up late to watch the news to watch the ever scheming fates: they come in companies of forty faces, eyes encased in oil! Smoke! Deserts full of oil! Veins! Clouds of marching oil! Chains! Too young to see such old things, my eyes are crying out smoke! Smoke! Thick inlaid with oil! Smoke! Black and boiling pillars sacred lead me shaking like a bride is to the V.A. In my dreams all of Kuwait is still on fire.

And these aren’t even the best lyrics in “Earth-Mouth”. Alex and Seth Woods played this song for us last Summer, and I asked him what it meant, what the depth of the words was saying. I told him it sounded like Isaiah. He told me he didn’t know.

Las Meridanzas is not flawless. There are songs I might skip to get to the better ones. I’m not a huge fan of “Summer Song” or “I Was An Only Child Then”, but I’ve long believed any great album needs songs that don’t quite hit. Additionally, I wonder if the album opener and closer, “We’ll Never Make It” and “Light”, could’ve switched and been equally effective. Structurally, the second to last track, “#182 Runs Late” could’ve been an excellent closer, as well.

But I’m nitpicking, and it’s been a while since I’ve heard an album where the flaws were so minor.

The high points are frequent. “The Hidden Legacy of Elisabeth Ney” brings raw power and storied tension to the life and death of a girl. “Las Meridanzas” says much in less than two minutes, and the refrain of “We’re alright now/We’re alright now” seems a hollow respite. Fortunately, the fright of that song is followed by the tempered joy of “Juarez Wedding Song”. On “Four Green Mountains”, the Trapdoor Band follows a direct country ballad format, reminiscent of Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen. It may be Dupree’s most straight-ahead song, but it captures his talent perfectly: this is a guy who knows how to write the basics, which allows him to branch out.

The absolute crime is how little folks outside of Austin know about the Trapdoor Band collective. Their music has been featured on NPR, and I’ve certainly written about them at length, but Las Meridanzas has them poised to make a leap. Paste and Pitchfork, hop on board. You won’t regret it.

You can listen to a rough version of “Earth Mouth” and “The Hidden Legacy of Elizabeth Ney” and purchase this album here. Please, please do.