The force is strong with these Mississippi men. The Weeks consists of men who know where they're from. They've slogged through the humid, soupy nights of that place. They've had no choice but to be consumed by them. They firmly believe that the stuff running through their veins is mud. It runs think and chocolate-y beneath their skin and that's where they draw what they need for living. It's what moves them. They're flooded with the mud that nourishes them and much more. They believe in the land that they'll be buried in someday.
The band's newest full-length, "Dear Bo Jackson," is a collection of songs that feels both wounded and proud. It exhibits a weariness that comes from being the age that these young men are - full of vigor and still with little to claim as their own just yet, aside from what they've got inside. It's that common push and pull between what's expected of someone and what's a real desire, what really gets the muddy blood pumping. It is nothing personal. It happens to everyone at their age, when everything's a possibility, but it's all coming to them so slowly. It's that agonizingly slow process that allows for growth. It's distance and travel that allow for revelations, slowly creating a pride in existence, in a home state and a home city, in a HOME that wasn't there before. It was but a whisper until things started to add up and it was only then where one could be proud of where they came from, rather than running away from there.
Lead singer Cyle Barnes sings about the curse and blessing of home, as they exist for everyone, but when he sings, "I'm not supposed to die like this/I'm supposed to be somewhere else," you get the feeling that the curses have evaporated when one's finally meant to address the heavens. There's bound to be a reckoning when someone gets old enough to absorb it, when someone's found contentment - even if they're still dead tired from all of the work they've put in. Williams sings about how a "life full of riches means nothing to me," and it's with that simple understanding that he considers life differently. He's found something else that matters more to him and his southern body embraces it.