Diamond Grove by Weirs

What does “The South” mean to you? This corner of the United States inspires so much passion for so many people in so many directions, and Diamond Grove by Weirs captures that ambiguity perfectly with its experimental take on old time music. By revisiting some of the oldest folk songs in the English language, Weirs point out the old South’s fascination with medieval Europe, back when white plantation owners envisioned themselves as the successors of European lords. Even in the 1700s, most Europeans and white Southerners alike only had the vaguest, most romantic notions of life under feudalism, making stories from that era fertile ground for projecting all kinds of mythology. Now, Americans use similar misunderstandings of the history of the American South for their own contemporary political games, brandishing its symbols while refusing to engage with the lives lived under the flagpoles. A haunted tone and morbid storytelling throughout the record draws us into the concept of the old South as a cultural ghost, haunting our America in the way that the knights and lords will always haunt Europe.