Toronto – Music is a like a huge evolutionary tree. One style can change and evolve into another, and elements of that style may split off and create entirely brand new branches of music. That isn’t to say that any music that is “new” is necessarily “better”. Just like evolution, the adaptive changes that occur allow it to better exist in its new environment. The successful adaptations survive and multiply, and the unsuccessful fade away.

The one amazing thing about music that makes it markedly different from evolution is its ability to fuse completely different styles into something that is new. It’s almost like inter-species breeding. In the natural world, a blue whale would never be able to make babies with a gorilla. But in the musical world, anything is possible. You can fuse classical music with hip-hop and some kind of freak blue whale/gorilla hybrid is born.

The Schomberg Fair is a Toronto-based trio and they’ve just released their sophomore album, Gospel. The music they produce could best be described as old thyme bluegrass and country on speed. They fuse banjos with rock guitars, heavy bass lines, and deep vocals. The result is a frantic and raucous effort of the traditional and the new. Schomberg Fair is doing to bluegrass what a young Ashley MacIsaac did to celtic: updating an older music form with some young energy.

Although the title of the album is Gospel, I don’t hear any elements of actual gospel music in it. However, the album is very appropriately named. Saying that it has religious undertones would be like saying Mel Gibson is kinda sorta Christian. With tracks like “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”, and lyrics like “well I know I walk with Jesus” from the track Trouble, Soon To Be Over, the religiosity is ever-present and pervasive. This will no doubt be a huge boon to like-minded individuals, and a huge detractor for pretty much everyone else. When I finished listening to this album I could smell a bit of fire and brimstone; liberal Christians need not apply.

This is a dark album, it’s filled with raw energy and raw religiosity that is perfectly tailored for the evangelical-rock crowd. For some this blend of banjo rock with a heavy dose of Christian cataclysm will be positively cathartic. But with such a well-defined target market, I can’t help but think that this strategy will not resonate with many others, either on the musical or on the ideological front.