Rory Strong - Catholic Guilt - CD

Rory Strong's latest indie folk rock masterpiece Catholic Guilt on CD housed in a fold over cover in a plastic sleeve /25

"I’ve been avoiding writing about this one because I know I’m not going to do it adequate justice. This time of year things are pretty busy both in terms of this blog and in real life, so I know that I’m not going to get as in-depth here as Catholic Guilt deserves. Nevertheless, the purpose of Rosy Overdrive is to share music I find worthwhile and stirring with other people, not to “save music journalism” or whatever, so we’re going to take a look at the latest record from Maine-originating, California-based singer-songwriter Rory Strong. Strong has been at it for a while–leading the project Holy Shadow for most of the 2010s, then eventually making music both as Rory Strong and the Standard Candles and completely under their own name. Catholic Guilt, a fifty-minute full-length being put out on CD through Oliver Glenn Records (Soft Idiot, Jordaan Mason) falls under the latter category. Much like the titular feeling, Catholic Guilt is impossible to ignore–it commands full attention all the way through.

Catholic Guilt is a fully sketched-out record, with a musical vocabulary hovering between electric indie rock and multi-layered folk rock/alt-country (featuring, among others, pedal steel from Mike “Slo-mo” Brenner). The contours are different, but Strong does have a bit in common with the previously-mentioned Mason as a songwriter. I would consider this album neither “emo” nor “folk punk”, but it feels informed by the same stuff that a lot of bands that hew towards the “singer-songwriter” side of the emo-y punk-y world also are, namely The Mountain Goats, The Weakerthans, and Dear Nora. “Johnsong” in particular is a dead-ringer for Little Pictures-era John K. Samson, and anyone sufficiently familiar with John Darnielle will feel the connection that the record’s title draws to his oeuvre (in addition to the title track, I also hear Darniellian echos in the writing found in “Shelly Duvall”, “Heretic Like You”, and “The Witch Is Alive”). Meanwhile, songs like “Desert Cottontails” and “The Dogs and the Dunes” take some fairly vast concepts and imagery and pull them down to Earth, which feels like a good encapsulation of Strong’s perspective on Catholic Guilt. You can still see the sun and the moon and the stars from down here, though." - https://rosyoverdrive.com/2023/11/07/pressing-concerns-ryan-davis-maria-elena-silva-rory-strong-fortunato-durutti-marinetti/