Ana Egge Between Us Story Sound
Canadian born singer songwriter Ana Egge’s back catalogue stretches to over a dozen albums since her self-titled debut album back in 1994. That body of work includes albums such as BAD BLOOD, recorded at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock and produced by Steve Earle, and LAZY DAYS from 2007, an album of cover songs on the theme of laziness. The common denominator in her recordings is the quality of her writing and her ability to deliver her work in a silver-tongued and composed manner.
Always prepared to expand her own musical universe, Egge took advantage of the enforced lockdown by collaborating online with our own Mick Flannery, whom she had encountered at festivals over the years. The regular two-hour sessions on FaceTime between the duo yielded numerous songs worthy of recording and the majority of the appropriately titled BETWEEN US feature these co-writes. Flannery, a double platinum Cork born artist, is due to include a number of the pair’s co-writes on his own next recording.
Egge has shifted seamlessly between musical modes and genres throughout her career. Folk, roots, blues, and jazz influences often emerge, but her laid back individualistic stamp remains consistent. Though co-written, a number of the album’s songs offer personal reflections on troubled and toxic relationships. Pain and misery particularly resonate on You Hurt Me and Don’t Come Around, with each word perfectly pronounced, no more than on the whispered opening lyrics on the latter. Even less upbeat is Lie, Lie, Lie, the only solo write by Egge on the album. It offers bruised and tender lyrics, reflections, and afterthoughts on love lost.
Further highlights include the breathtakingly moving Sorry and the horn filled opener Wait A Minute. She bookends the album with We Lay Roses. Co-written with Grammy-winner Gary Nicholson, the song is a sensitive eulogy for her nephew.
Egge albums have consistently contained songs embedded with tenderness and emotion. This delightfully arranged album showcases a tunesmith of unlimited talent at the top of her game.
Review by Declan Culliton
Abby Bryant & The Echoes Not Your Little Girl Self Release
In an increasingly crowded marketplace, it’s becoming more and more difficult for artists to have their music heard and appreciated, despite the quality of what they have on offer. Just ask the likes of Margo Price, who hauled her music from door to door in Nashville, before her superb debut album MID WEST FARMER’S DAUGHTER eventually found a home at Third Man Records and launched her career.
Hopefully, Abby Bryant & The Echoes’ striking debut album will reach the ears of the movers and shakers that help to propel the progressions of acts from ‘under the radar’ to flourishing. Both Bryant and her sidekick, guitarist, and album producer Bailey Faulkner, hail from Gastonia, North Carolina. They have been playing music since childhood, learning the ropes the hard way, and enduring the challenges faced by touring musicians.
Bryant has been singing all her life, initially at church under the watchful eye of her music minister father, and latterly at Appalachian State University, where she guested with Faulkner’s rock band. She soon progressed to lead singer in a band with Faulkner, alongside a number of guest musicians and the duo subsequently began writing songs for what was to become this debut album.
As the album’s defiant title and opening track imply, the theme across the thirteen tracks is often one of taking control, without undue interference from others. However, alongside that liberation, the material also conveys the trauma of leaving the security of friends and family, and the resulting personal dilemmas. She addresses these topics full-on from the onset.
The title track, with Bryant’s powerhouse vocals and a backing sound equally explosive, is likely to have you hitting the replay button. That blood and thunder expansive sound, fronted by Bryant’s powerhouse vocals, continues on the twelve tracks that follow. The marriage of soaring vocals, a polished rhythm section, soaring horns, and ripping guitar breaks, all combine impeccably. Bryant is equally comfortable executing the more relaxed soulful ballads Time Wasn’t On Our Side and There’s No Way as she is belting out the more robust inclusions Tried, Had To and When I’m Gone. By way of reference, I’m picking up certain parallels between this album and the aforementioned Margo Price’s band, Buffalo Clover, prior to her debut solo album.
If you are one of those, like me, that reaches for the mid-career Shelby Lynne albums when you need a blast of full-on Southern Country Soul, this album is for you. ‘I gotta find my very own way to live in this big old world,’ announces Bryant on the album’s title track. On the strength of this full-blooded record, she’s certainly heading in the right direction. Maximum volume recommended.
Review by Declan Culliton
Adia Victoria A Southern Gothic Atlantic Mod
Described by Rolling Stone as ‘P.J. Harvey covering Loretta Lynn at a haunted debutante ball’, A SOUTHERN GOTHIC is the third album released by South Carolina artist Adia Victoria. Her debut album BEYOND THE BLOODHOUNDS (2016) offered a collection of songs that reflected the writer’s life in her twenties. It was followed by the hard-hitting SILENCES (2019), produced by Aaron Dessner (The National), which dealt with betrayal, discrimination, and chauvinism. Both albums suggested a writer of undeniable talent, blessed with the vocal capacity to passionately deliver her astutely composed songs.
Raised as a Seventh Day Adventist, Victoria’s attraction to the arts was initially fuelled by poetry and short story writing, before embracing the music of artists such as Miles Davis and Fiona Apple. Her musical career, and in particular her love of the blues, coincided with receiving a gift of a guitar from a friend on her twenty - first birthday. Following spells in New York and Atlanta, she arrived in Nashville in 2010, where she earned a diploma in French and was also welcomed into the bohemian East Nashville musical community.
SOUTHERN GOTHIC picks up where the previous album left off. Once more, it’s refreshing to witness a woman of colour recording an album packed with gothic tales of the religious obsessions of the South and particularly when the narratives are based on first hand experiences. The production duties on the album were overseen by T. Bone Burnett, and a pointer to the esteem she is held in by her peers are contributions from Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Kyshona Armstrong, and Matt Berninger.
The album shifts between gospel blues and rootsy country songs, all delivered by Victoria’s striking vocals. The tales are a black girl’s memoirs of the Southern upbringing, its challenges, and contradictions.
Her comfort zone as a child is remembered on Magnolia Blues. “I’m gonna plant myself/under a magnolia,” she announces on that opening song, recalling seeking refuge under the shade of a large magnolia tree. Darker times emerge on Whole World Knows, where we hear of the preacher’s teenage daughter shooting heroin in her father’s car, as he delivers a sermon in the nearby church. Far From Dixie, the highlight of the album for me, tells of fleeing from a smothering regime. It’s loaded with layers of baleful overdubs, menacing bass lines, and screeching guitar breaks.
Bordering on disturbing, Troubled Mind - with a rhythm that recalls I’m A Man by The Spencer Davis Group - screams of religious guilt (‘I wanna behave Lord, but I’ve been led astray Lord, don’t know where I’ve been Lord’). Following a spoken intro, You Was Born To Die is a bluesy romp, with backing vocals and hand claps by Margo Price, Kyshona Armstrong, and Jason Isbell. Elsewhere she is joined by Stone Jack Jones, who shares vocals on the ghostly My Oh My, before closing the album with South For The Winter. The latter includes vocals from Matt Berninger on a somewhat upbeat ballad, a contrast to the preceding tracks.
The exceptional album HOLLER, released by Indigo Girl Amy Ray in 2018, was a stoical look at American history in the Southern States from the eyes of a white American woman. Victoria, from the perspective of a woman of colour, has equalled that album with this most powerful collection of songs.
Review by Declan Culliton
The High Hawks Self -Titled Self Release
This band is made up of a number of veteran players that came together for a project that has resulted in thirteen songs, over an hour of listening pleasure, and a really enjoyable result for all involved.
The collective is made up of musicians from different bands, all of whom know each other over years of sharing stages and tour bus/hotel stops along the road. The core group is Vince Herman (acoustic and electric guitar, vocals- Leftover Salmon), Tim Carbone (fiddle, electric guitar, synthesiser, vocals - Railroad Earth), Chad Staehly (piano, B3 organ, Wurlitzer, Rhodes, keyboards - Hard Working Americans), Adam Greuel (acoustic and electric guitar, vocals - Horseshoes & Hand Grenades), Brian Adams (bass - DeadPhish Orchestra) and Will Trask (drums and percussion - Great American Taxi). They are joined by Ross James, who plays pedal steel on one track and Sheryl Renee adds backing vocals on three tracks.
The album was recorded at Silo Sound studios in Denver and all the songs are written by individual band members, with the exception of Fly High, a cover of the Woody Guthrie song. Having existing friendships and sharing a respect and appreciation for each other’s music, has been the magic ingredient in the chemistry here and all six individuals really grasp the opportunity to play together.
The sound is a relaxed, laid-back Americana groove with the instruments dove-tailing effortlessly into each other across the songs. The warm keyboards and understated guitar riffing is kept anchored by a great rhythm section and the fiddle of Timothy Carbone really shines on a number of track’s; White Rider, Do Si Do, and Trying To Get By, allowing the band to really stretch into solo swaps on their various instruments. Without guitar credits on individual track’s, it’s difficult to separate the playing of Carbone and Greuel but both deliver great, inventive runs and solos on a number of songs. The track, Home Is, slows matters down and has some nice string arrangements, with fiddle and pedal steel adding an added layer of melody.
Blue Earth has a reggae lilt and is a different sound to the other tracks that mainly fall into a roots-based area. When the Dust Settles Down and Talk About That lean towards both The Band and The Allman Brothers in the easy delivery and loose arrangements, while other songs like, Just Another Stone and Fly High allow the ensemble playing and harmony vocals to shine. Most impressively, the feeling that these guys have been playing together for many years comes over strongly, and let’s hope that this maiden voyage together is not the only time they decide to produce music of this quality.
Review by Paul McGee
Laney Lou and the Bird Dogs Through the Smoke Self Release
This band combine superb ensemble playing with an energetic élan, fusing the best of both Bluegrass and Folk traditions, with a modern twist. Their four-part harmonies and engaging song-writing are quite addictive across the eleven tracks showcased, and the running time of just over thirty minutes is a perfect example of sticking around just long enough to leave a lasting impression.
Having released their debut album in 2016, the band has gone on to record a further three albums, culminating in this new release, written during the months of lockdown. The band comprises Lena (Laney) Schiffer (vocals/guitar), Matt Demarais (vocals/banjo), Brian Kassay (vocals/fiddle), Josh Moore (vocals/guitar) and Ethan Demarais on bass. The harmonies are tight and the musicianship is impressively fluid; just what is expected of a Bluegrass-influenced band who dove-tail around the rhythms with disarming ease.
They speak of change, rebirth and resilience and their strong ethic for hard work and regular touring comes shining through with a real clarity and focus. Everything is self-managed and shared among the band members, with a do-it-yourself approach to steering their career in exactly the direction that they choose to pursue. Self-made and self-directed. Amen to that.
The slower songs highlight the sweetly clear vocals of Lena (Laney), with Reeling and Count On You showing different sides of relationships; separation and feelings of loss juxtaposed with feelings of comfort towards a trusted companion. The up-tempo songs, such as Burn It Down, Black Crow and Ball and Chain, show the ensemble in full flow with the melodic bass lines of Demarais grounding the rhythms and allowing the twin guitars, fiddle and banjo to kick up a storm. Coming from the big sky country of Montana has also been an understandable influence on the music and there is a theme of nature running through the songs, highlighted by the excellent Paradise, which celebrates all the joys to be found in getting into the countryside.
Feed the Beast looks at a difficult relationship and trying to control anger issues, while Up For Air channels feelings of vulnerability and surrendering to emotions. Final track, Alive, sums up the giddy pleasure of this superb album, with energetic playing and a message to enjoy this life; we’re only here once and no-one makes it out alive. This is a worthy project and filled with great tunes that will linger in the memory.
Review by Paul McGee
Roland Roberts All About the Timing Happy Life
A singer-songwriter is only as good as the songs in his bag and this Alaska-based musician certainly carries a colourful array of engaging material. Given that this is his debut album, Roberts has plenty to be proud of and his way with a lyric and a melody will see him gather a fair wind as his career blossoms.
The easy style of his writing and keen observational skills bring to mind a young John Prine. It is something that Roberts displays in his vocal tone and in the easy groove of his music, ably supported by the playing skills of producer Bob Hamilton (Weissenborn, steel guitar, Telecaster, mandolin, archtop guitar, Dobro), Sarah Hamilton (fiddle, harmony vocals), George McConkey (harmonica), Rob Bergman (bass), with both Lonnie Powell and Patrick Hamilton sharing drumming duties. Roberts himself, stars on guitar, Wurlitzer and vocals, with the thirty minutes flying along on the crest of these eleven appealing songs.
The blues feel of songs, Don’t Tell Me Goodbye and Lonely Blues, are restrained and tinged with a sad acceptance; the fiddle, steel guitar and harmonica colouring the former, and the warm keys soothing on the latter track. The feeling that John Prine was somewhere in the ether is heightened on the track, Sittin’ In Nebraska, a humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at the travelling blues; ‘Tyler Childers was in town tonight, I had tickets to the show, But I’m stuck in Nebraska, with nowhere else to go.’ In addition, Being Me, delivers the sage advice that walking your own path is what life is all about; ‘ Well, being me isn’t easy, but I guess it isn’t hard too, Maybe that’s what makes me me, and that’s what makes you you.’
The compromise of growing into adulthood is addressed in Picture On the Wall with the observation that ‘Can’t tell if you’re changing, or if you’re not changing at all, like a picture on the wall.’ Adult opioid addiction in the USA is the theme of Wake Up, a serious look at an epidemic that has seen prescription drugs at the centre of a growing crisis, fuelled by extensive overuse. Things are lightened again on Ramblin’ Joe, a song that celebrates freedom of the spirit and a rebellious attitude, ‘ He’s got nowhere to be and everywhere to go.’
Perhaps Roberts sums it up best on the title track, All About the Timing, with the lines, ‘So dance like nobody’s watching and live each day like it’s your last, And keep on looking forward, don’t you worry about the past.’ This is a very enjoyable album and it comes highly recommended.
Review by Paul McGee
Daniel Meade Ever Wonder Why You Get Outta Bed? From The Top
Always asking the important questions in his music, Meade has released his latest set of songs that opens with the title track, a slightly pessimistic look at the day ahead. As with his last album, this is pretty much a proper solo album with the writing, playing, recording and mastering all being handed by Meade. There are some additional vocal contributions from long-time friend and guitarist Lloyd Reid and also from fellow Glasgow artist Cara Rose. As with the last album it has a broader palette than his work with his band Flying Mules or the music he makes with Reid. Like everyone who grew up over the last twenty years or so, it filters a number of different influences to good effect. Every listener can make comparisons which seem to suit, yet the overall sense is of Meade’s encompassing body of work.
Lyrically there are always interesting perspectives on his life and observations of the lives of others. There is a sense of energy throughout that is matched with melodic structures that give the songs the room to explore themselves. Sometimes The Rain Don’t Get You Wet is optimistic and gives a sense of the something positive beyond the obvious. It is a layered sound of keyboards, electric guitars and propulsive rhythms. Meade’s ever requisite guitars and percussion pulse also drive Look No Further, which features the vocals of upcoming Glasgow songstress Clara Rose with great effect. There are keyboard brass inserts into By The Book that give it a different sense of expression and mood that highlight his sense of what his interpretation of a rock band would be.
The strummed acoustic of The Choices That You Make, which also has a hand-clapped rhythm, is a salutary warning delivered in a strong accent that suggests lesson, if not learned, then at least recognised. It is this sense of an individual who has not always seen things go the way they should around him that is again the focus of More So The Other Than The One - a toe-tapping slice of keyboard-led charm and charisma. It again highlights the overall technical ability that Meade has as a player, performer and producer.
Too Tired To Sing The Blues has some enticing boogie-woogie piano underneath the mix of stray voices and choruses. Watcha Doin’ To Me has a robust 60s feel that is again put around a retro keyboard sound that seem right for its questioning sentiment. More considerate is the ballad To The Lovers that sees Meade deliver a more nuanced vocal that shows he is no slouch in that department either, here tinged with the high-lonesome sound he has displayed from the start. The closing track Now I Laugh is again bolstered by the synthesised brass section sound and a robust Faces style ragged but right feel.
There can be no doubting the talent that Daniel Meade has displayed here and with previous releases. Even if this and other albums have moved beyond the Glasgow-inflected Americana of some of his earlier work, both live and recorded, he always brings something to the table that is interesting, diverse and not a little entertaining. Doing this is a good enough reason for him to continue to get himself out of his bed and we can be thankful that he does.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Zachary Lucky Songs For Hard Times Self Release
This time out Lucky has, given these times, which undoubtedly have been hard for many, recorded an EP of seven songs mostly of traditional sources but with two covers - Townes van Zandt’s Rex’s Blues and Damned Old Piney Mountains written by Craig Johnson. These fit thematically with the remaining five songs: Hang Me, Oh Hang Me, Leaving Cheyenne, Goodbye Dear Old Stepstone, I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground and the perennial Wild Mountain Thyme. This, unlike his previous releases, was recorded in Ontario in a small cottage location on the shores of Hall’s Lake. It was a simple and effective process of a single microphone capturing voice and guitar.
The very essence of the song is stripped back to its basics, so the whole thing depends on the song choice and the delivery. This is both affecting and effective. Leaving Cheyenne (also known as Goodbye Old Paint) is a cowboy song that has been recorded many times but this version is no less enjoyable than the others. The same can be said for the other songs which, each in their own way, take a view on hardships and the effect on the protagonist, forcing them to leaving a favoured place or wishing they could be something or somewhere else. So place and time are central to the stories. That and such incidents as losing fingers in a mill accident, something that has a devastating effect on a logger. There are similar stories of down and out desperation and departure that are give resonance by the heartfelt way they are sung and played. The closing reflection of Wild Mountain Thyme is tinged with regret but with a resolution that it may be time to move on. It is a song that would have a resonance this side of the world, having been a standard folk song for eons with many different interpretations of this traditional ballad, yet this also has its place in the here and now.
Lucky has several previous albums to his name, all recorded with a full band, but here he has set out to record something that reflects these (hard) times of self isolation and reflection. In that light this is a moment in time for the artist, one that can be shared and understood and from which a certain solace can be drawn.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Charles Wesley Godwin How The Mighty Fall Self Release
There is little about this album that doesn’t confirm Godwin’s status as a singer/songwriter par excellence. Or maybe that should be folk singer, albeit with a full a wide-ranging sound, or simply an expressive Americana artist. Wherever you care to place Godwin, his second album is a welcome release. As with his last outing SENECA, there is a strong sense of place, people and perception in these twelve songs. Producer Al Torrence is again back behind the console of Music Garden Studio where this was recorded, with some sixteen players bringing their talents to enhance the process. The instruments cover pedal steel, electric and acoustic guitars, strings, harmonica, trumpet and keyboards and blend to create a cinematic countryscape.
This enables the expansive sound throughout, which benefits richly from Torrence and bassist Nate Gatanzarite’s string arrangements. All these elements serve to tell the stories here. The lyrics are poetic but still convey the sense of the story each individual tale needs to bring the words to life. As an example, in Gas Well the lyrics paint a picture of hardship and perhaps some forlorn hope “Droughts have been long and the floods have been fierce / Ain’t made a profit on the farm in near a dozen years / There’s money all around eight thousand feet down / Be a few more months until the drill can break ground.” While in Blood Feud there is a sense in the music of a certain chaos and danger that ends in a contrasting coda of police sirens, acoustic guitar and lonesome voice. This fits again with the lyric (co-written with Larry Hooper) “Ain’t no guessing what the knives are for / I didn’t leave my house dressed to die / Only one of us is going to make it out alive tonight.” There are also moments here of tenderness as in Lost Without You - the title of which sums up its message of enduring love.
However this album is not some academic exercise in prose set to music, as it has a lot of heart, soul and life experience at its core. This time out the writer has looked beyond the West Virginia setting he grew up in. He has also become a father, with all the attendant rethinking and priority adjustments that that might bring to one’s world view. His rich baritone expresses this and more from a sympathetic but realistic viewpoint. One song and one of the immediate standouts here is Jesse, inspired by some graffiti glimpsed on an early morning run. This is just one of several observations that served as inspiration for Godwin’s writing. Though the themes have a universality, they started right there on the street, in some small town with real people. There is a strong sense of life as well as for the understanding that death is something that is also ever present. He is aware of how these current times have a potentially profound effect upon us all, whether locally or worldwide.
The album runs for nearly 50 minutes, but it is time well spent and it allows the listener to be immersed in the world Godwin has created and reflects on through these songs, many of which stay with you long after the album finishes, both in terms of melody, chorus and resonance. The mighty may fall but in the end it is the music which needs to survive and continue - in a way that this album does.
Review by Stephen Rapid