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You know at first glance that the title of this album is ironic. The Strugglers is the vehicle for Carrboro, NC singer-songwriter Brice Randall "Randy" Bickford II. His voice has a deadpan, yelpy delivery sort of like Bill Callahan of Smog crossed with Will Oldham, and I guess that formula is a fairly easy summation of the music as well. The songwriting is for the most part pretty basic and repetitive, like the resolutely 3-chord "Racing Down One Path." You've got your prerequisite traditional instruments, like mandolin and banjo, plus more highbrowish instruments like strings and vibraphone, and they all sound pretty nice thanks to veteran studio jockey Jerry Kee. Rhythms mostly range from loping to plodding, although "The Cascade Range" is slightly more uptempo. Bickford duets nicely with Heather McEntire of Bellafea on "I Tried to Repair." Unfortunately, I don't particularly care for his lyrical concerns—there's introspective, and then there's self-involved. The album really starts to try my patience toward the end: the penultimate track, "Distant Demands," has a lengthy outro with a pointless psychedelic guitar solo, and the piano-based title track, which closes out the disc, clocks in at an excessive 8 1/2 minutes. I started out lukewarm toward this album, but found myself souring toward it in the end. (mike.01.06)
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