The previous two Son Volt albums explored leader Jay Farrar’s musical groundings in country and blues with Honky Tonk and Notes Of Blue respectively. On his latest record, Farrar and his bandmates are showing some of their folk roots. That’s not to say Union is a folk record: far from it, this is a return […]
Robbie Walden Band – When the Rooster Crows
The opening song on the Robbie Walden Band’s latest album, When the Rooster Crows, is 50 Years Too Late. It’s appropriately named because the record is what it would have sounded like if Merle Haggard had done a concept album in the late sixties when The Beatles first popularized the idea. Lyrically the project follows […]
Roses And Cigarettes – Echoes And Silence
One of the threads that bind us here in Twangville is love for a soaring vocal, screaming guitar, driving rhythm, rock and roll song. Not the over-produced kind you get in some arena show, but one that has roots in a dimly lit bar in Memphis or Austin or Muscle Shoals. My latest find along […]
Joey McGee – El Camino Real
Although he wrote the rest of the songs on his new album, El Camino Real, the one that most epitomizes the record is a cover of Susanna & Guy Clark’s The Cape. Clark told the story, in his homespun way, of one of the crazy characters that inhabited his world. McGee adds an electric guitar […]
Melissa Ruth – Meteor
Starting a few miles north of the Golden Gate and lasting all the way to Canada, the coastal redwoods make their way to the very edge of the ocean. The climate that supports them cycles from the omnipresent fog in the summer to the waves of rain that blur the distinction between sea and land […]
The Way Down Wanderers – Illusions
There’s a fine line between disappointment and disillusionment. I think some of it has to do with permanence, but whatever the definition the boys in The Way Down Wanderers do a good job of staying on the fleeting side of pessimism on their latest album, Illusions. In general, they accomplish that with upbeat instrumental support, […]
Hayes Carll – What It Is
By the second song on the new album from Hayes Carll, What It Is, it’s already apparent that he’s moving away from the pensiveness of his last record to something more in line with his earlier work. But that’s also not to say he’s not improving his craft along the way. The dry wit and […]
Ted Russell Kamp – Walkin’ Shoes
With a resume that includes bass player, lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer, Ted Russell Kamp could be a contestant on The Most Interesting Man In the World. Most of those talents are on display on his latest record, Walkin’ Shoes. The first cut, Home Away From Home, sets the pace properly with a walking, […]
Jonah Tolchin Video Premiere – Drift Away
Although he’s originally from New Jersey, Jonah Tolchin put out a scorching southern rock road song a couple of years ago that, in the live version, seems just on the brink of launching into Radar Love, perhaps the best road song ever. The title cut of that album, Thousand Mile Night, was a good proxy […]
Madisons – Country Music Sunday!!!
When I last was tuned into Austin’s Madisons, Dominic Solis and his band of merry-makers had just released a record full of tragic stories and ne’er-do-wells set to some lively dance music. It was a lot of fun if you didn’t listen to the lyrics too closely. Over the holidays their new EP, Country Music […]