Upstate – 4/27

Transitions are both inevitable and startling– like a scenic drive before a hairpin bend, an abrupt storm, a rediscovered love. For Upstate, the past three years have been a litany of transitions as members Mary Webster, Melanie Glenn, Harry D’Agostino and Dylan McKinstry patiently navigated the unfolding hurdles of the pandemic and some of life’s most pivotal moments. Amid a whirlwind of marriages, babies, funerals, and spiritual awakenings, mourning, and celebration, was a long, uncertain pause. This restful time apart from the demands of the road fostered for Upstate the chance to make a record that could touch on every corner of their lives, a deeply honest portrait.

 

Over the past eleven years, Upstate has garnered acclaim for their effortless and genre-dodging arrangements, which flourished on two previous albums A Remedy (2015) and Healing (2019). The group swelled with members, traveled the country on a national headlining tour, and secured support slots with The Felice Brothers, Marco Benevento, Lake Street Dive, Mt. Joy, and the Wood Brothers.

Upstate now welcomes multi-instrumentalist Dylan McKinstry, who engineered, mixed, and, along with Mary Webster, produced their third full-length album, You Only Get A Few.

 

 

You Only Get A Few is filled with songs blossoming from uncertainty and creative collaboration. Webster describes the album as “darker and moodier” than their previous releases, but joy abounds in the band’s performance. Shedding old expectations, the LP is the most authentic to who the group is now, as each member leaned into what they’d previously felt constrained from. “You just have to let go of so much that you never thought you could,” she says. That emancipation dances throughout the record, as Upstate expands their sonic palette, reshaping their sound to more closely resemble what their aural imagination.

“Our collaboration in the studio was more raw, fast, and honest because we weren’t even sure there was a future for any of us,” McKinstry says. “We simply just wanted to make a record because it felt important to capture the moment we found ourselves in. We wanted to document and pay homage to the transition itself.” Now the more classic instrumentation, centered on vocals, bass, guitars and drums, turns the attention from novelty to songcraft, and invites the wider additions of clarinet, piano, and organ to sit on atop a fuller foundation.