The Delta Saints w/Quiet Corral: at 3rd & Lindsley (Nashville, TN) Sun. March 3, 2013

The Delta Saints w/Quiet Corral

Presented by Lightning 100 and Yuengling

Pop/Rock

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

At first glance, the swaggering clichés listed under “influences” on The Delta Saints’ Facebook profile don’t seem to reveal much: “Dames. Working hard. Playing harder.” Right. Got it. But a listen to their debut full-length Death Letter Jubilee — which came out last month — makes it clear that working with tough-talking, old-school archetypes is not only what they do, but what they do electrifyingly well. They’re a young post-college band — singer/dobro player Ben Ringel, bassist David Supica and drummer Ben Azzi met at Belmont — whose chosen musical path has taken them in an entirely different direction than their indie-rock and indie-folk peers. The Saints take up the sort of Deep South song settings and hard-living, she-devil and death imagery that emerged in Delta blues, then served as grist for the mill of classic rock ’n’ roll. The blues-rock boogie in the quintet’s sound is undiluted. (The group is rounded out by guitarist Dylan Fitch and harp player Steven Hanner.) But they also bring to the table post-Adam Levine pop sensibilities — in other words, they know how to pack a punch into a hook — and a precise, muscled modern-rock attack. They’ve no doubt listened to the Allman Brothers, but they weren’t content to pitch their tent in 1972.

—Jewly Hight