Black Jake & the Carnies set fierce murder ballads, dark warnings, and a certain tough rust-belt revivalism to the beat of an old-time string band. This octet offers a unique blend of Americana, bluegrass, and punk, as well as a stage show that can be very unpredictable (you may have foam rubber balls thrown at you if past performance is any predictor of future results. Steve Leggett of the All Music Guide writes that Black Jake plays "a kind of raucous acoustic Americana that tosses post-modern Appalachian murder ballads, Irish drinking songs, skewed, twisted love songs and general cautionary tales into a stylistic blender that has them sounding like nothing so much as a maverick, hopped-up punk polka band in full 21st-century everything-fits jug band mode"—and that just about covers it! The Carnies are from Ypsilanti, but with performances at Nashville's Music City Roots and beyond, their dark legend is spreading.