"I wake up, a mouth full of earth. Sun shining, but not through the dirt."

So begins the chorus of the Crooked Brothers' 'Buried Alive,' and it's a line that aptly describes the trio's sound: beautiful and warm, but with dirt under its fingernails.

Their debut album, Deathbed Pillowtalk, is an exciting blend of timeless country classic sounds, backporch blues and stomping scrapyard funk.  Sexuality, death, loss, and loneliness haunt their music, often in three part harmony.  The Crooked Brothers will have you falling in love with dying, and dying to fall in love.

The Crooked Brothers' fascination with the past extends well beyond their choice of  instrumentation.  At times, the histories, landscapes and long winters of their home province of Manitoba boil to the surface and inform both the imagery and the characters of their songs.  This is, if nothing else, prairie music.

Their repertoire includes original songs by each of the members, as well as interpretations of old standards and works by musical inspirations such as Howlin' Wolf,  Townes Van Zandt, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee.