DocFell & co. – Frequencies and Vibrations

When a ten-year relationship dissolves in front of your eyes, the heartache drills deep, and the pain – the ruminations regarding what could have been – are powerful, relentless, and inescapable. However, musicians have the ability to focus that pain – to work through it – by creating songs expressing every emotional wound and aching, flaking scar. Releasing on Valentine’s Day (which is hilariously apropos), DocFell & co.’s latest album, Frequencies and Vibrations, is pulled from the very vortex said pain resides, and delivers a powerful emotional journey fueled by entrenched mourning, time-earned acceptance, and ultimately, the promise of something bright, something better, looming just beyond the glassy horizon.

Ready to hear DocFell & co.’s mix of country, Americana, and the coalesced, melodic expression of a leaking but healing heart? Let’s listen, and talk about it.

Hear from the artist about the project:

Regarding the creation of – and the emotional state during – Frequencies and Vibrations, the band states, “The album represents a transition in my musical career. Going through the end of a ten year relationship and struggling with depression, I stepped away almost completely from music. At the time, I had already started this recording project and decided to finish it regardless. In the end, with the masterful skills of Hank [Early], we finished the album.

I was convinced at the time that I might not ever release it, however, and I let it sit while I took time to work on my personal life and allowed myself to heal from years of trauma.”

Ready? Let’s hit the highlights.

Listening, and talking about it (i.e., hitting the highlights).

The album begins with “Summer’s Gone,” and it’s the timeless tale of short-lived, probably-never-had-a-chance romance. It’s a melange of classic acoustic instruments, a soothing, water-glancing organ, and a lead vocal pulling from years of experience and thousands of emotional miles crossed. With light, windy harmonies and a gritty, phrase-changing guitar riff, “Summer’s Gone” is a strong, sweetly aching opener.

“Knock Me Over Moses,” if sung one (or perhaps two) octaves lower, could be a lost track from Johnny Cash’s robust, emotionally embattled catalog. Focusing on the unenviable task of rebuilding one’s self, one’s life, “Knock Me Over Moses” is both a warning and a war cry. It’s finding yourself amidst the wreckage, but tenacious enough to dust off memory-riddled debris, and scale another charred and smoky hillside.

“Texarkana” describes the incredible power held by women – especially regarding their great capacity for love (and, of course, destruction). This is a shorter track set to a slightly frenzied pace as the narrator tries to survive a woman’s hurricane-like passion and forest-leveling fury.

“Waterloo” is a great desert plane described through picked acoustic and gliding, sky-writing pedal steel guitar. And like Napoleon’s great loss at Waterloo, Doc’s relationship is immediately comparable – he fought as hard as he could, but ultimately lost. And now, he’s burying the dead, tending to his wounds, and trying to find a reason to rebuild the once great empire currently collapsed within his ruined and smoldering heart. This one may be my personal favorite.

Album closer “The Death of Me” channels an upbeat Willie Nelson. With galloping snare, quick acoustic picking, and a rumbling, tumbling meter throughout, “The Death of Me” is an acceptance of the mortal damage inflicted by one loved so deeply. And it’s playful in this acceptance, realizing “death” could certainly be delivered in more physically painful ways, and with nary a passionate kiss. “The Death of Me” is a great closer that acknowledges the feelings of previously expressed darker emotions, but embraces a strange logic in appreciating a less atrocious ending.

But is it actually good?

Oklahoma’s DocFell & co. create a memorable, country-varnished desert-scape upon which the pains and turmoils of deep love transpire. Frequencies and Vibrations presents its pain respectfully – but underneath, a writhing emotional wildness bangs against the deceptively repainted barn doors of a man’s splintering psyche. It calls out to the pain, it embraces it, it is destroyed by it, and ultimately, it grows stronger because of it. Frequencies and Vibrations is an album that almost stayed quiet, but like a burgeoning, pressure-splitting heart, it ignored logic and demanded release – it needed to be heard, to heal, to be shared and understood, and we’re all the better for it. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

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BELOW: Listen to DocFell & co. and check them out on Bandcamp and Facebook. Please support DocFell & co. by visiting their website and playing, downloading, and/or purchasing their music. And, as always, thank you for supporting real music.

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