Album Notes

Reared in the dusky twilight of Michigan industry and baptized on its haunted shores, Ann Arbor\'s Bone Orchard Revival offers Sunday morning lovesick hymnals to break your back and harmonies to mend it, with siren songs sweet and sultry as a Saturday night.

At once angels\' trumpets and devils\' trombones, songwriters Adam M. Arscott and Jeni Lee Richey deliver olde-time country, gospel and blues-influenced songs steeped in love, loss, desire and delicious strangers. Bone Orchard Revival\'s sound is laden with high lonesome harmonies, ethereal melodies, vivid stories and an unyielding sense of reverence for the trails blazed by those who have hoisted this rag before them.

Their debut album, \'Hush Money Hymnals\' brings ten of their finest songs to the listener, nine of them original compositions and the tenth being a brooding arrangement of the traditional gospel tune \'Wayfaring Stranger\'. Gritty lyrics, haunting vocals, and sincere, quality songrwriting run deep through \'Hush Money Hymnals\'.

The variety of song stylings on \'Hush Money Hymnals\' lend themselves to a wide audience and radio specialty show play: Fans of classic country duets and Willie Nelson ballads will love the interplay and harmonies of \'Fresh On The Vine\'. Lovers of scorching jazz siren songs will swoon to Jeni Lee\'s sexy, powerful delivery and the solo-driven band arrangement on \'Moonlit Lover\'. The sinister undertones and Adam\'s whispered phone-line vocals on \'…Like A Bullet\' could easily be the backdrop for a David Lynch film starring Tom Waits, and story songs like \'Ahab\'s Wife\' and \'That Corliss Steam\' will find friends among fans of more modern acts like The Decemberists or The Handsome Family. From the casual listener to the Americana/Roots music devotee, \'Hush Money Hymnals\' delivers something for everyone.

For \'Hush Money Hymnals\', a crack band of some of Michigan\'s finest musicians was assembled to back Arscott and Richey, including Chris Westhoff (Lucas Family Band) on upright bass and electric piano, Adrian Robles (Modernlull) on drums, Timothy Monger (Great Lakes Myth Society) on accordion and mandolin, and Mark Wallace (Black Jake and the Carnies) on fiddle. Recorded by Brandon Wiard at Pretty Suite Recording in Ann Arbor, MI, throughout 2008, produced by Adam M. Arscott and Brandon Wiard, and mastered by Jim Diamond at Ghetto Recorders in Detroit, \'Hush Money Hymnals\'. The initial release of \'Hush Money Hymnals\' is distributed under Adam\'s own Sinister Soul Recordings imprint.

With music like the patent medicines of days past, Bone Orchard Revival\'s \'Hush Money Hymnals\' may just be the cure for what ails your weary modern soul.