Driftwood Soldier isn’t your average mandolin-bass foot-stomping gutter-folk duo

Growling and crooning, muttering about lost love, brimstone, and the glorious view from the underside of a rusty world-order, Owen holds the rhythm on mandolin and foot percussion. To his left, Bobby stretches bass notes into lyrical vines that vibrate somewhere north of your liver and flower unexpectedly at night. This is the kind of roots music that grows through the cracks in a West Philly sidewalk and drinks its rainwater laced with motor oil.

Their second full-length album, Stay Ahead of the Wolf, arrived late in 2019 with production support from Erin McKeown and a mix by Grammy winner Ted Hutt. Unfazed by a world in disarray, it crawled up onto its four legs and went barreling through the digital ether, giving audiences old and new a taste of what it’s like to hear this strange beast howl.