With its Depression-era name and penchant for framing arrangements with banjo, clarinet, and fiddle, this Canadian quintet (including Trish Klein of the Be Good Tanyas) specializes in contemporary original material that sounds like public-domain traditional. Some of the anachronistic affections sound like a minstrel show, such as the vocal phrasing on the spiritual "'Til It's Gone," but the jaunty ragtime of "Go On and Pass Me By," the delicate latticework of harmonies on "Home to You," the jazzy reverie of "So Lazy," and the country waltz of "Texas" attest to the music's refusal to be bound by categorical restriction. And there's nothing nostalgic about the social conscience displayed in "To the Angry Evangelist," capped by a furious fiddle coda. --Don McLeese
