Pine Hill Haints

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• Doug Wallen
• The Pogues

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Alabama iconoclasts Pine Hill Haints released a small mountain of obscure records this decade before jumping to K for 2007’s Ghost Dance. Its title is a nod to the troupe’s self-described genre of “ghost music,” and that album exposed a wider audience to leader Jamie Barrier’s hard-bitten drawl and able trafficking in bygone sounds. His wife Katie plays washboard and mandolin, while other members contribute a shoestring backdrop of accordion, snare, singing saw, and so-called “washtub bass.” The Haints’ new To Win or to Lose is as good a place as any to start, touring diverse terrain as it does. “Bordello Blackwidow” could only be described as back-porch calypso, whereas “Je Passe Devant Ta Porte” detours into breezy French singing and “Never Cry” is a conspiratorial slice of rockabilly. There’s at times a Pogues-ish quality to Barrier’s ragged throat and love of traditional tunes, but he comes into his own on such creepy standouts as “Revenge of the Spider Web Boy” and “How Much Poison Does It Take.” With Dirty Birds. DOUG WALLEN
Sat., Aug. 15, 9 p.m., 2009