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Dark Americana / Southern Gothic recommendations

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rynne:
Request for musical knowlege, plz.

What I'm looking for:  American roots music or roots music-based bands writing dark, narrative songs.  Currently active artists are good; even better would be older recordings musicians who influenced today's bands.

What I'm not necessarily looking for: general recommendations for freak-folk, psych-folk, anti-folk.  I've seen the other threads for general folk music, and most (but not all!) aren't necessarily what I'm interested in.


This is a relatively specific request, I'm looking for albums that fit both a general musical category and a certain mood.  In fits and starts, I've been getting interested in American roots music: folk, especially the Appalachian vein; bluegrass; country; blues; etc.  And the ones that appeal to me most are the really dark ones, the ones revolving around death, dread, man's suffering at the hands of God/nature/women/other men and so on.  Here are some albums for reference:

Angels of Light - New Mother, We Are Him
Bonnie Prince Billy - I See a Darkness
Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter from the Ash
Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
Jim White - The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus

Some of Devendra Banhart's more dreadful songs would fall into this category, but most of his work doesn't.  I'm sure some of Nick Cave's albums would fit, but I haven't yet gotten around to exploring his catalog, so suggest away with Bad Seeds stuff (I like Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! but it’s more rock-oriented than what I'm looking for here).  Ditto for Will Oldham's Palace records.  Current 93, Death in June, Sol Invictus and similar esoteric bands fit the mood I want, but I'd like something based more in traditional American musical forms than European ones.

Cheers! and thanks.

Johnny C:
Elliott Brood.

imapiratearg:
Uhhmmm, Red House Painters?

TheFuriousWombat:
I can absolutely and unequivocally recommend Wovenhand. Dark, brooding, swampy, Southern Gothic music. It's all around awesome.

Jackie Blue:
The obvious answer would be Sixteen Horsepower.  Also Rex.

And there was a local band here that put out a couple albums called Blackgrass.  I'll try and get the one I have in the mediafire thread after work, it's amazing.

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