Review- Shane Smith & the Saints: Norther
For some of us, it’s been awhile. For some, Yellowstone has left them wanting more. For some, this is the first introduction. No matter which group you identify with, a new chapter commences for everyone March 1st via Thirty Tigers/Geronimo West Records. After a decade of touring and paying dues with a blue collar work ethic, performing upwards of ~240 shows in a given year. The bill is about to be paid in full and this record signals another meteoric shift. Perhaps altering the trajectory of Shane Smith & The Saints forever, Norther is destined to fly off the shelves at a precipitous pace, left on repeat for the foreseeable future and promptly placed into its rightful position at the top of the charts.
In just under an hour of playtime, Norther furnishes 13 incredibly intoxicating tracks, providing just enough paradisiacal propellant to bring about a nirvanic bliss that hits with the accuracy, precision and speed of a hypersonic missile. Norther is Shane Smith & The Saints first album in five years and showcases the full spectrum of their style that seamlessly blends elements of Southern Rock, Country, Americana, Folk, and a little Honky-Tonk with soaring four-part harmonies and of course Shane Smith’s velvety vocals.
Before I dive into this review, I must admit to being a full-fledged Shane Smith & The Saints bobcat t-shirt wearing fan; I believe Bennett Brown to be the greatest fiddle player alive on the flipping planet! I have drunk the Kool-Aid, come fight me!
Photo by David Wells
For me, I have been an avid Saints fan since January 30, 2020, mere moments after having my mind blown as an eyewitness to Whiskey Myers burning down the Key West Amphitheater. I somehow stumbled down Duval and found myself sandwiched into a cramped booth inside Irish Kevin's. I ordered a beer and unbeknownst to me at the time, it was my last of the evening. As soon as Shane Smith & The Saints started to play, the crowd started to move up and down with more energy and vigor than any group ever has to the1992 hit song from House of Pain “Jump Around.” The waitresses would become so bogged down they couldn’t move— in fact no one could move – in any direction except up and down. Luckily for all in attendance, the Key West Fire Department was busy putting out a fire elsewhere on the island and unable to enforce establishment capacity limits within the heart of Key West. For me and others that I have spoken to that were in attendance that fateful night, this was a magical, surreal, life-changing performance. One that fantastically escapes hyperbole as words to accurately describe the evening flat out do not exist. And what words that do, I am convinced, fail to accurately encapsulate in totality what all who bore witness, experienced.
This performance was a defining moment in time, not only for the fans that came before me or the thousands of newly minted fans created that particular evening; but I believe for the band too as word quickly spread across the island like wildfire and into Mile 0 Fest lore forever. Many Mile 0 festival attendees believe that COVID was responsible for removing the Mile 0 performances from the bars along Duval. Perhaps it played a small part. However, it is my opinion that it was this very Shane Smith & The Saints performance at Irish Kevin’s that changed everything and set into motion a series of ripples that have yet to cease. After all, what good is having thousands of thirsty people in your bar if you can’t sell any booze after the band starts playing?
More recently, I was able to score tickets to the sold out Shane Smith & The Saints November 10, 2023 performance at Washington D.C’s 9:30 Club which was also filled to the brim with a brand new batch of Yellowstone converts, the usual cult following, and undoubtedly, a few new fans created that evening anointing everyone in a shared spiritual revival. This would be the first time I heard any of the tracks from Norther. After we finished hearing “Adeline” for the first time my wife immediately had me bend down so she could whisper in my ear, “you have to review this album!”
As a fan, it's hard to listen critically to an album and not become clouded by previous feelings or hard forged memories. Like the time I witnessed the amazing Bennett Brown change and tune a broken string mid-song with the precision of a NASCAR wheel man just in the nick of time to play his next explosive ear dropping solo. The band didn’t panic, Bennett’s hands were as steady as a surgeon, flawlessly and without hesitation doing what needed to be done. Suddenly without warning, popping up with an increased unbridled passion feverishly and ever so tantalizing close to severing a few more strings.
With this bias in mind, I present Norther, the single greatest Shane Smith & The Saints album to date. Norther is the next mile marker in a long journey for the band to achieve all that they dare to dream. Great strides have been made all around in an attempt to bottle up and capture the energy, intensity and vibe from their live performances. Norther comes as scintillatingly close as ever, but the missing ingredient has always been the interaction with fans. The cataclysmic thrill of seeing and feeling the band live: the electricity shared between each other, flowing through the air, connecting one another; the give and take relationship between the fans and the artist, much like two scuba divers sharing a single respirator. This is the magic that leaves everyone in awe. A mesmerizing partnership that you can feel with every fiber of your being and of course something you have to experience to believe.
Norther wastes no time with Shane Smith & The Saints immediately getting right down to business - coming out of the gates swinging for the fences. “Book Of Joe" delivers a first-rate juicy morsel of classic patented Saints sublime sound, along with the fiery enthusiasm and energetic eclecticism of their outworldly live performances, as best as mortally possible, directly to your living room, office, or pickup truck. In my humble opinion, much like Roy Hobbs in “The Natural'' they absolutely hit the cover off the ball. Turn this song up as loud as you can without getting into trouble with your audiologist, HOA, or the law.
There was a brief moment in time in which I would have provided equal billing to Shane Smith and Bennett Brown as both are so damn captivatingly good. But, now, it is clearer than ever that Norther offers a window into the culmination of over a decade of sacrifices of life on the road: discipline, dedication and obedience to honing their crafts. The entire band now moves together as one, in perfect harmony, breathing in limitless potential for greatness. Every person is pulling their weight and each person is pushing the next to achieve more than either could achieve alone; becoming infinitely more than the sum of their parts. Dustin Shaefers electric guitar sounds as breathtaking and thrilling as ever. Zach Stover and Chase Satterwhite replace your heartbeat with their own rousing, breathtaking, pulsating rhythm. And of course, you have Smith’s rich, smoldering baritone pipes to keep you warm. Did I mention that Bennett is the best fiddle player in the universe? They all flat out get it done!
Unlock your inner thirst for rock and roll with “Fire in The Sky” which begins with an ominous driving fiddle and synchronous, thunderous drum and bass rhythm that presses and pounds upon your chest like a defibrillator. Smith's voice shifts into more of a Danzig-esqe mode - feverishly simmering your soul just below a boil. Then like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, Dustin's lead guitar appears out of nowhere and begins to fly; providing another unexpected exhilarating thrill.
“Adeline” provides the perfect example of a new-to-me emerging yin and yang undercurrent between Dustin “Sunshine” Schaefer and Bennett Brown. Both playfully jockeying to display their own talents, amplifying the experience and teleporting the band and the listeners into a new realm. “Norther has a little bit of everything,” Smith says proudly. “It’s not a one-sided album. It’s got every single element of what makes up our sound right now.” I have to agree, there isn’t a single song that seems out of place or that I would swap out or skip. This is the quintessential Shane Smith & The Saints album that we all needed in our lives. As you may have guessed, I have already pre-ordered the Terlingua blue Norther vinyl.
For an independent band like Shane Smith & The Saints, the work is never done. “It’s like you can’t help but feel like you’ve paid your dues to get to a certain spot, but once you get there, you realize you’re just starting to touch the surface of the bigger picture,” Smith admits. “At the end of the day, it still feels like we’re getting discovered. But maybe that’s what it’s all about.” Norther is the soundtrack to that discovery. It’s the sound of a band pushing its limits, broadening its reach, and expanding its audience.
I don’t have a rating system. Perhaps going forward I may need to invent one in order to assist with stratifying. Within any schema I could develop, Norther would effortlessly acquire all the fire emojis I could muster. This album hits on all cylinders. Starting out at a breakneck pace then slowing down into a sustainable tempo and leaving one in complete awe and wanting more. But hey, that’s what the repeat button is for.
Find out more about Shane Smith and the Saints at the links below: