Greg Freeman thrives on finding emotional catharsis and present-day resonance in the eccentric ugliness of the past. His songs all have a palpable sense of place thanks to his urgent delivery and evocative lyricism, which mines history for character-driven tales of violence, loss, and epiphany. On his sophomore LP Burnover, out August 22 via Canvasback Music/Transgressive Records, the Maryland-born, Burlington, Vermont-based artist uses the complicated backdrop of the Northeast to sing of grief, alienation, and the clarity that comes from opening up yourself to love. Explosive, unsettling, and undeniable, the 10 tracks here meld energetic indie rock with an ambling twang. It’s Freeman’s most adventurous and personal yet, cementing him as a singular songwriting talent.
When Freeman quietly released his debut LP I Looked Out in 2022, it had no PR campaign, label, or music industry promo, but still received raves from Stereogum and Uproxx. The word-of-mouth success of that release had Freeman on a relentless tour schedule. An itinerant lifestyle from ceaseless long drives made him think about home and his role in it. “I was trying to make an album about where I live, without specifically writing about myself and my immediate surroundings,” says Freeman. Driving around Vermont, he’d pass by the birthplaces of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary War figure and state icon. “I was drawn to these slightly tragic regional figures who helped me understand the culture of that area even today,” he says.
Burnover borrows its title from "The Burned-Over District," a term used to describe parts of central and western New York that became hotbeds of fervent religious revival and utopian communities during the early 19th century. “There was this period where there’s all this psychedelic, religious movement coinciding with the territorial expansion,” says Freeman, citing Jack Kelly’s Heaven’s Ditch as well as Louise Glück, Grace Paley, Jim Thompson and Emily Dickinson’s writings as inspirations. On the album, there’s a sense that danger or revelation lurks behind every corner. It opens with the foreboding “Point and Shoot,” where he sings, “But I was lost like a little child / In a wilderness where the West was way too wild.” It’s a livewire track, with tangible momentum and an expansive arrangement.
When Freeman was touring I Looked Out, he revamped his live setup as a five-piece where he was the only guitar player. He took that mindset to Burnover, which he recorded with Benny Yurco, drummer Zack James (Dari Bay, Robber Robber) and Freeman’s live band, at Benny Yurco’s Little Jamaica Recordings in Burlington. “I wanted to write songs that were fun and challenging to play on guitar, and maybe had a little more movement,” he says. Songs like “Gone (Can Mean a Lot of Things)” burst with intensity and Freeman’s guitars envelop the track with crunch and winding leads. But Burnover shines when Freeman tweaks the formula, like on “Curtain.” Originally demoed as a meandering guitar jam, the track came to life when pianist Sam Atallah tracked a tack-piano take at the studio. His lively leads invigorate the song, especially as Freeman sings lines like, “My thoughts die out slowly on the blood swept plains where I see you every night / And to the lonely hours, it’s like burning the furniture to keep the house bright at night.” Freeman says, “As soon as Sam laid down the piano, we heard the song for what it was and it came alive.”
For all its propulsive, noisy power, Burnover, which is produced by Yurco and Freeman, and mixed by Adrian Olsen, is immensely inviting and often beautiful. Take the heartfelt and woozy “Gallic Shrug.” A deceptively simple and low-key track that evokes Paul Westerberg at his most earnest, Freeman sings, “You're looking to the sky for love and all you get is a Gallic Shrug.” The complicated people who live in these songs are all searchers, grasping to understand a landscape that no longer makes sense and was never theirs in the first place. (In “Gone,” he sings, “Down in Rensselaer, nothing’s quite clear / You can cross the plane, but gone can mean a lot of things.”) On the booming “Salesman,” which boasts horns from Cam Gilmour, Freeman sings, “Light spent your life wrapping all around you / And always finding your form / And now it drifts like some - blind drunk salesmen / Looking for you door to door.” With wailing pedal steel from Ben Rodgers and pristine harmonies from Lily Seabird, the track reaches a hair-raising crescendo broadcasting the kinetic force of Freeman’s touring band.
Though Burnover is an album about feeling like an outsider and grappling with American myths to create or uncreate a sense of self, it also reflects Freeman’s firm community in his adopted home in Vermont. “I had a choice whether to make this record in Burlington or do it somewhere else,” he says. “I wanted my friends to play on it so the decision was obvious.” He ended up with a collection of songs that burst at the seams with raw immediacy and spark. “With this album, I really just wanted there to be as many things to hold onto as you can,” he says.
