Bassist Bobby Szafranski first lent his velvet touch to the back-handed poetry and full-throated ruckus of mandolinero Owen Lyman-Schmidt’s solo work in 2013. Since then the duo has been leapfrogging their way up and down the East coast bringing their unlikely sound to bars, living rooms, roof tops, and back alleys.

Scavenger’s Joy, Driftwood Soldier’s 2015 debut, established their musical range for audiences everywhere, with two-thirds of the songs receiving radio play on dozens of radio stations around the country including WFUV, WNCW, and WXPN, where Bruce Warren called the duo “a bluesy version of Nick Cave with a nod to Tom Waits.”

In early 2017, they followed the breadth of Scavenger’s Joy with the focused intensity of Blessings & Blasphemy, a concept EP exploring the tension between spirituality and dogma by reinterpreting gospel traditionals alongside anti-religious originals.

Their new full-length record, Stay Ahead of the Wolf, was produced with Erin McKeown and mixed by Grammy winner Ted Hutt (Old Crow Medicine Show, Lucero, Devil Makes Three).

With this bellowing, crooning testimony to the power of storytelling in hand, Driftwood Soldier is back out on the road bringing their liver-shaking live show to audiences both devoted and unfamiliar. This isn’t some nostalgic reproduction of an imagined past, or a feel-good celebration of a rosy future. It’s a bittersweet love song to an imperfect world, a lullaby that leaves you bleeding. Find Driftwood Soldier, wherever they’re playing, and hear this new beast howl!