Keep Away the Dead

Most of the tunes on Keep Away the Dead were born at Mara Hall in Mara, BC (pop. 350) where bed tracks were laid down in the crisp air during the depth of winter. The arctic atmosphere of that empty, cavernous, hardwood structure was the perfect complement to Huebert's sensibility: A tense and acute restraint; a shivering, biting, sometimes bitter rending of barebones, folk-inflected rock music. With the addition of Shaunn Watt and Peter Carruthers, Siskiyou has coalesced into a superb, incisive four-piece band, honed over the past year by extensive touring in Europe and Canada.