Miss Derringer Issue #29

Lullabies (Sympathy)

By Dina Zwiebel
Published: September 1st, 2006 | 12:00am

The first song on Miss Derringer’s sophomore release, Lullabies, and its title, “People Ain’t No Good,” confirms my suspicions, but it also gives a fine melody to a good motto. Miss Derringer gives us a healthy way to shrug off big, dark conclusions about life: Have a sing-a-long about them. Nonetheless, while the message is bleak overall, the rebel spirit behind Lullabies saves it from the gothic abyss.

Lullabies gives us the twang and soul-filled songs to dance slowly to at 3 a.m. in a ghost-town dive bar. On “Waiting,” vocalist Liz McGrath sings, “And I’ll wait here alone / Til it’s time to go on.” “Backroads” has her bemoaning, “As I lay dead / Asleep in that bed / In a town without a name.” Then there are the song titles that by themselves sum up the loneliness of widowhood, like “He Hung on a Sunday” and “Dead Men Weigh More Than Broken Hearts.” Put these tracks on shuffle with Johnny Cash or Patsy Cline. You get the idea.

I’m just kidding about the truth being dark business — I think. Miss Derringer does not seem to take life seriously enough to brood too much over the bad things. After all, they have an image to maintain: As noted in their bio, these are “a gang of L.A. outlaws on a musical jailbreak.” The demons of blues and country haunt both McGrath’s voice and the band’s songs, with each track leaving behind the smoky diesel trail of Bonnie and Clyde. Just make sure you choose the humor and catharsis of Lullabies before you get caught in its sinister clutches.