Carolina Chocolate Drops—Leaving Eden

Grammy award-winning string band Carolina Chocolate Drops returned this week with their latest album Leaving Eden, singing old-time folk melodies reminiscent of songs like Johnny Cash’s “Jackson.” Leaving Eden delivers a similar spirit of authenticity and emotion that won people’s love in their previous album Genuine Negro Jig but appeals to a selective audience.

Durham-based members Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, Adam Matta and Hubby Jenkins rotate between string instruments such as the banjo, fiddle, guitar, harmonica and kazoo. The album opens with a lively folk dance song, “Riro’s House,” affirming their strong traditionalist bent. Much of the album, including “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?” and “Po’ Black Sheep,” is similarly uptempo and fiddle-heavy.

The Chocolate Drops know their lane, and how to stay in it: wisely, they never make a kitschy attempt to give roots music a modern update. At the same time, the band shows they’re willing to engage other musical strands. Giddens, the Chocolate Drops’ main vocalist, gives an R&B-inspired turn in with the ironically named original “Country Girl,” and she pulls it off because her voice is, simply put, phenomenal. If Leaving Eden has any chance of transcending genre and breaking into the mainstream, it’s Giddens; hers is a soulful voice, deeply penetrating and emotive.

Leaving Eden is a charming emblem of Southern string-based roots music, but it’s not an album that ever really lands in the present. It’s not difficult to see what standout “Country Girl” shares with the Chocolate Drops’ rendition of Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style,” a highlight of Genuine Negro Jig; the closer the Chocolate Drops come to contemporary elements, the more dynamic and compelling their performance becomes.

There’s something to be said for the band’s devotion to their chosen genre, but it’s probably a bit overexuberant to say that Carolina Chocolate Drops are bringing string bands back. Leaving Eden won’t disappoint the band’s devotees, but, well-executed and uncompromising as it is, it’s a record trapped in a past era.