× The Dead South to play a sold out Melkweg Max this week

The Dead South to play a sold out Melkweg Max this week

02-11-2021

The Dead South, a gold rush vibing four-piece acoustic set from Saskatchewan, infuse the genre's traditional trappings with an air of frontier recklessness, whiskey breakfasts and grizzled tin-pan showmanship. Their sound, build on a taut configuration of cello, mandolin, banjo and guitar, speeds like a train past polite definitions of acoustic music into the grittier, rowdier spaces of the bluegrass world.

The Dead South are poised to release their upcoming Bluegrass covers EP Easy Listening For Jerks – Part 1 on March 4, 2022. Part 1 includes the Sun belt-meets-black belt take on “You Are My Sunshine,” in which The Dead South dig below the surface layer lullaby to levels of deep desperation, a mood well suited to the prospector’s baritone of Nate Hilts. In a minor key, “Keep On The Sunny Side,” changes from sweet to sinister. “Matterhorn,” a gallant adventure tale that sees four friends set off to climb a mountain, also works on the level of The Dead South’s origin story. “It’s closer here to heaven than it is back to the ground,” goes the song, now also a fitting encapsulation of the band’s feelings of anxiety and exhilaration about returning to life on the road.

With banjo, mandolin, cello and guitar, The Dead South certainly look the part of bluegrass traditionalists. But, as outsiders to the bluegrass world by circumstances of geography, they’re from the Canadian prairies, and by influences, equal parts finger-picking and punk, there are few comparisons to be made for the four-piece acoustic band.

In November the band will be over for a show in Amsterdam to be followed up by some more dates in Spring 2022. 
03/11: Amsterdam, NL - Melkweg - SOLD OUT
02/03: Utrecht, NL - TivoliVredenburg - SOLD OUT
03/03: Antwerpen, BE - De Roma - SOLD OUT
10/04: Brussels, BE - Botanique *
* with Elliot BROOD

Related artist: Dead South back