Murder by Death

Murder by Death was billed as an act on one of the better evenings of this year’s Midwest Music Summit, Indianapolis’s answer to Austin’s SXSW festival. Although Murder by Death have been around for years touring both coasts and everywhere in between, I’d never gotten the chance to actually see the Bloomington, IN quartet up close. Wait, a national alt-punk/death-country act from the soybean fields of Indiana? You’re damn right, and not only are they from Bloomington but off/on again students at IU as well…lead singer Adam Turla is even a theology major. Heavy. It would seem that that theology major helped fuel a good portion of the lyrics on “In Bocca Al Lupo,” Murder by Death’s latest release that deals with damnation and salvation, tinged with the dry, blood red dust of the old west. Each member dressed with the well-worn, antiquated look of a bartender in a John Wayne movie; they wore white button up cloth shirts, suspenders, old carpenter’s work boots, and brown canvas pants. Every member, that is, except the kick ass cello player; Sarah Balliet swung her head and thrust her shoulders in time with the band, holding her electric cello between the knees of her torn, southern-belle-époque dress. Turla sang like a whiskey soaked Johnny Cash from the second circle, crooning and wooing the audience the entire time. “This next one I wrote about a tango in hell,” Turla said before descending into a swirling up tempo-ed number. Heavy.