Twangville

A music blog featuring Alt-Country, Americana, Indie, Rock, Folk & Blues. Est. 2005.

Tim Bluhm – Sorta Surviving

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There’s nothing like going to the source of your inspiration to really understand its intricacies.  Californian Tim Bluhm, of The Mother Hips, did just that when he decided to do a country music album.  Sorta Surviving was recorded at Johnny Cash’s cabin-cum-studio, and features A-list players like Jesse Aycock on guitar and Elizabeth Cook on […]

Son Volt – Union

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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

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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 […]

Joey McGee – El Camino Real

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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, […]