When I described one of last month’s reviews as being one of the first pandemic-inspired records that had crossed my desk, I hadn’t heard the Dirty Rain Revelers latest, Live From the Porch. This intimate duo performance by Matthew and Melissa DeOrazio was recorded in the middle of the pandemic during the summer of 2020.

Both musicians play guitar, Matthew on searing electric and Melissa on acoustic and vocals, but the strength of the album is the combined power of the plaintive tones of her voice and the sheer anguish of some of Matthew’s solos. You can literally hear the isolation we all suffered through.
The songs were also clearly selected from the band’s vast repertoire to convey the very feelings the musicianship invokes. The album opens with Bob Dylan’s anti-capitalism polemic, “Masters of War.” The second cut, PJ Harvey’s “Desperate Kingdom of Love,” asks a listener to dig deep and choose love over fear.

Matthew is a master of tone utilizing a variety of effects to flesh out the tunes. At many points on the album, the two players sound like so much more than the sum of their parts.

Live From the Porch includes two originals. “Where Is My Calm” features rapid-fire vocals bemoaning the state of the world. Melissa’s frenetic guitar strums anchor-scorching lead parts from her partner. The song chugs along like a freight train about to go around a curve just a little too fast. The album closes with another Bob Dylan classic, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).” The cut is the longest on the record, clocking in at over ten and half minutes. It opens with a beat on Melissa’s muted guitar strings as Matthew’s electric soars behind her. Her vocal treatment reveals the song to be what it was from the beginning—a rap.

It’s an inventive take, which sums of the way this band rearranges the cover songs, while also conveying a specific feeling from a specific time and place.