Freakwater? More like Bleakwater!
Freakwater ?rst attracted attention while co-founder Janet Beveridge Bean was still in Chicago indie-rock favorite Eleventh Dream Day, but Bean and Catherine Ann Irwin have long since established that this is no side project. Now more than 15 years into a partnership revolving around relentlessly doomstruck old-time country music, Bean and Irwin infuse Thinking Of You… with as little hope or redemption as possible. With assistance by members of Califone, the album’s arrangements—complete with steel guitar and drowsily weeping strings—sound authentically timeless, albeit dispensed with the occasional wink. But a creeping sense of disingenuousness can’t help but work its way into Freakwater’s turgid miserablism and affected twang.