Amigo The Devil

Yours Until the War Is Over

Regime Music Group

This rather bizarre dirge-like music from the Austin-based artist with the moniker Amigo the Devil (Danny Kiranos) is perhaps not for everybody but this iconoclastic artist has amassed a considerable following for his singular approach. His songwriting bears similarities to Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and in a weird kind of due to the heavy deep baritone vocals, the Crash Test Dummies (remember them!). You probably won’t leave smiling. Kiranos is fearless and purposely irreverent. His often abstract Yours Until the War Is Over stories are based on his nomadic past, camaraderie with fellow wanderers, and deep dives into the dark side although there’s plenty of wit and keen, even brilliant observation mixed in with the tragic ones. This time, the multi-instrumentalist is especially focused on the listener getting everything he has to say, as he hunkers down with spare accompaniment, usually just a backing duo or trio on Yours Until the War Is Over. The collaborators are guitarist and co-writer David Talley, bassist Jason Dietz, and on some track drummer Carson Kehrer and background vocalist Katerina Kiranos.

Unsettling rattles introduce the unnerving “Hanging By the Roots” with its references to suicide, religion, and the ultimate recognition “no matter what we choose in the end, we’re hanging by the roots.”  It’s as dark a beginning to an album in recent memory. The banjo driven “it’s All Gone” sounds like the drunken ship captain singing foreboding warnings to his shipmates but buried within is the wisdom of these closing lines – “When everyone’s opinion is wrong to someone else/When empathy has all gone to Hell/Oh it’s all gone.” We are living in that such age. The epic “I’m Going to Heaven” reads like a Greek tragedy replete with notions of suicide, violence, hate, and bursting through Heaven’s doors to exact revenge on the character who wronged him. He sings with  a huge does of vitriol too.

The half spoken, half tantalizing slow waltzing “The Mechanic” is one of the most stripped-down songs, a desolate breakup ditty with the cinching line “used to be is all I’ve become.”  Standout track “Once Upon a Time at Texaco pt.1,” a play on the title “Once Upon a Time in the West’ is a shoot ‘em up Bonnie and Clyde like tale and this writer can’t help but think of Jason Isbell’s “Super 8 Motel” when hearing “Cause no one wants to die in a Texaco.”

Thes others stand out too. “Cannibal Within” essays the human experience perhaps best of all. The banjo drive track punctuated with bottle clicks and the clacking of toy teeth, lays out our tensions, insecurities, and self-doubt – “And the moment we can’t recognize the person inside our skin/we’re losing the fight, eaten alive by the cannibal within.”  “Garden of Leaving’ is incredibly bleak as a couple mourns a miscarriage, trying to find the will to go forward. Bitterness screams in “Virtue and Vitriol” – “There aren’t enough words to explain all the damage you’ve done.” “One Day at a Time” is a twisted love song packed with sarcastic humor as the protagonist recites all the reasons, he hates being alone with such lines as “and I’d cover up the stars If I could reach them/But I’m too afraid of heights to even try.” “Stray Dog” is another humorous tongue-in-cheek self-pitying narrative with the payoff – “I’d rather be a stray dog with you.”  Cleverly, multiple background vocalists mimic Borton Terrier, Belgian Malinois, Boxer, French Bulldog, Jack Russell Terrier, and Pit Bull.

Kiranos is such a literate wordsmith that other reviewers and certainly listeners will read plenty more into these songs. Kiranos imparts plenty of wisdom, though it often takes some digging deeply into these songs to find it. Have at it.

• Jim Hynes

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