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Music was a fad. A popular one, one can't deny, but a fad all the same. It started off well with that first Psalm -- the devoted crowing to the heavens, rending their garments in praise and repentance -- but it's been pretty much downhill since then. There have been some crests (Mozart, Isaac Hayes, Donald Fagen, Tenacious D), but far more troughs (too many to name). And today, friends, I’d like to introduce a band who will do little to change that, which is no sweat off their hairy backs.

Assembly of Dust, five dudes from the Northeast, aren't about to save anything aside the last few drops of Jack Daniels ("You gonna finish that?") and maybe your marriage (“Let’s get it on.”). But again, they understand that. They are musicians, after all, but perhaps even more so, masochists, and it is in that spirit that they have taken the completely original step of releasing a debut studio album (hear hear!), called Recollection, due out on Hybrid Recordings on Mar. 6, 2007. It’s ten songs by five dudes -- no muss, no fuss, and by God we should all be grateful for that.

I can make no grand claims about the band. They do, however, truly love music, and it is from this spirit that Recollection emerges. The songs are deceptively simple -- a no-less obnoxious Rubik’s Cube of joy, sorrow, want and experiences drawn from the lovelorn moments of their mundane lives.

The five culprits for Assembly of Dust are co-songwriters Reid Genauer (lead vocals and former Strangefolk co-founder) and Nate Wilson (keyboards), Adam Terrell (lead guitar), John Leccese (bass) and Andy Herrick (drums). They've been playing together for roughly five years (it sounds like six and three-quarters, to their credit), and they tour a lot, playing at Bonnaroo and Carnegie Hall, and they've opened for the Who, David Crosby, Michael Franti and Spearhead and the Dead (they know people who know people).

Assembly of Dust isn’t the worst batch of musicians you'll ever hear. Three of them are formally trained (correspondence school), they stay in tune, Terrell is only a lick short of a Tootsie Pop and Genauer could teach you a thing (or two, if we're feeling generous) about crooning at the harvest moon. They also practice really hard (at getting drunk) and have not-half-bad taste in music: The Band, My Morning Jacket, Neko Case, Paul Simon, Gillian Welch and Calexico are obvious faves. But basically they sound like Traffic with a big helping of Little Feat, which is pretty damn cool since the late, great Lowell George could have swallowed all of those folks whole and written 17 songs about tidal clams that would make you laugh, cry, fall in love, cheat and fall out of love before your morning coffee.

I got carried away there. Just to be clear, I cannot promise that Assembly of Dust will do any of that. I can promise a toe-tap. They are willing to go that far. And maybe one (1) hum-along. I can even push the bar further and say that with the right combination of drug and drink, I could foresee a front-porch country shuffle to “The Honest Hour.” Actually, if one were drunk enough (does such a thing exist?), there’s a whole smorgasbord of possibilities here: air-guitar, freaky-deaky, impromptu kissing, hippie noodling (but a noodlefest – these guys aren’t getting paid by the note here) and maybe even a bar fight or two.

But that's it. If you are looking for life affirmation, the resemblance of self in art or inspiration to Achieve Great Things, go read a book, watch Fellini, immerse yourself in abstract expressionism, try to remember the names of your children's mothers. Chances are you're a smart enough cookie to have done those things, and so let's get back to the Incredibly Important Topic at Hand: Collective of Dirt's amazing Shit We Keep Forgetting.

I highly recommend you start off with the track "Grand Design." It's actually not terrible, but more importantly it's the first song. We hear some Fleetwood Mac, Yacht Rock, maybe even a little '70s R&B in that chorus that we find ourselves humming at weird moments. There's also "The Honest Hour," which is nice, straight-ahead chugging country, the kind of sound you expect the Blue Ridge Mountains to make at dusk in the dewy spring. “Telling Sue” finds a midpoint between American Beauty and early Ray Charles, a place we are scared to learn exists and terrified to realize we kind of like. And I’ve heard good things about "Zero to the Skin" and “Samuel Aging,” too, but I haven't actually heard them. What kind of time do you think I have?

Even though I stand firmly behind every backhanded compliment and out-and-out insult in this little essay, it's important to note that this is a very sincere band. They absolutely mean what they say, however boring it may be, and integrity is not something to be taken lightly. They also have a sense of humor, and not in that annoyingly contrived way that is all too common (pot, kettle, etc), but in an easy tone that makes you feel like a friend even though you aren't and honestly wouldn’t want to be even if you had the choice. And so out of all of this comes Recollection, a collection of ten songs that if you’ve read this far, you’ll probably enjoy. Sucker.

--Jams Murphy, November, 2006