“Old Habits,” the title track from the new album by Kat Wallace and David Sasso, starts with warm chords from an electric tenor guitar that then slides into a waltz, buoyed by drums and bass.
“Here we are now, back at square one,” Wallace sings. “All the rules we made becoming undone.” As tenor guitar, bass, and drums hold down the pulse, Sasso joins in on a piano that dips in and out, a boat on the waves. Wallace is singing about a romantic relationship on the rocks. But it’s also, in a very positive light, a statement about the direction the New Haven-based duo has taken on Old Habits.
Wallace and Sasso met as members of the bluegrass band Five ‘n’ Change. On their first album as a duo, 2019’s Stuff of Stars, they deftly explored where the borders of their chosen genre might lie, as they deployed more complex harmonic structures, more striking melodic twists and turns, and more textures and combinations of unusual stringed instruments than a bluegrass album typically offered. On Old Habits, Wallace and Sasso don’t break the boundaries of bluegrass so much as they glide past them, venturing into a wider territory while never quite forgetting where they started.
So “Old Habits” turns on a chorus that stops and doubles back in a surprising yet familiar way — less like mainstream bluegrass, more like the older, stranger parts of folk music, albeit with a few harmonic tweaks that betray some real compositional chops between them. “Rain on My Windows” is a nearly straight-up country song, complete with pedal steel and fiddle, which trade solos with mandolin; the only thing missing (though not missed) is a rhythm guitar. “Empty Bottle News” floats on twin tenor guitars and a string quartet, pushed along by the sparest rhythm.
The instrumental “Somes Pond,” meanwhile, features a melody that unravels at its own pace while the instrumentation and the rhythm only grows more urgent. Mandolin and fiddle state the melody, take turns at improvisation, then make way for a rich, plucked cello. That’s when the drums come in, and the soloistic baton is passed from instrument to instrument, becoming increasingly adventurous with each turn, before returning to the feel of the first time though. It travels a long way, even as it never loses a certain easy-going, pastoral calm. If any rules have been broken, no one involved is worried about it.
“Childhood Song” shows that Wallace and Sasso can keep it simple when they want to; that song also yields some of the most expressive playing on the album. “Great Conjunction” strips the sound all the way back to the way the duo started — just two voices and two instruments interweaving among one another. “Ger the Rigger” then takes away even the voices for a traditional Irish tune. The album closes on a lush, soothing cover of the Dawes song “Crack the Case” and a heartfelt take on “After Our Fall,” a song written by Sasso and Five ‘n’ Change member Ken McEwen.
“Why does it take so long to get through the love I had for you?” Wallace and Sasso sing. “It’s been some time since we sang our song / I still catch myself dreaming of you / I still catch myself dreaming of you.” As with “Old Habits,” the forlorn lyrics are offset by the easy strength in the music itself. From the start to the finish of Old Habits — including its final irresolute chord — Wallace and Sasso sound like they know exactly where they’ve been, and are ready to follow wherever it is the music will take them next.
