Emily Moment The Party’s Over Self Release
An ambassador for promoting Americana and roots music since arriving in the U.K. from America in 2012, Emily Moment was one of the organisers of Chalk Farm Folk which showcased regular free gigs in Camden, London. She was also a member of two bands, The Savannahs and Mahoney & The Moment, and released her solo debut album NEVER ENOUGH in 2011. Her latest project THE PARTY’S OVER features many of the artists that appeared at those shows in Camden and became close friends, creating a tight knit music community.
Moment cut her teeth musically as a member of the New York anti-folk community, dividing her time between performing and her other career as a working actress.
Those folk leanings are stamped all over her latest album, which displays her wherewithal to both write notably and bring those words to life with an impressive vibrato style vocal delivery.
The album’s title suggests arriving at rock bottom and facing up to the mental and day to day physical challenges that life deals. Much of the inspiration did emerge from Moment working as an administrator in a counselling centre. Standout tracks are the countryfied ballad Santa Maria, the raw and bluesy Josephine and the rootsy harmonica driven The Bottom, which tackles mental illness head on.
Recorded at Urchin Studios in London, Moment called on Dan Cox (Laura Marling, Tom Odell, The Staves) to mix the project which she produced.
Review by Declan Culliton
Amy Speace There Used To Be Horses Here Proper
An eloquent lyricist and gifted vocalist, Nashville resident Amy Speace’s life was turned upside down by events that inspired the eleven tracks on her latest recording THERE USED TO BE HORSES HERE. Coming late to motherhood, the birth of her son gifted Speace with a welcomed life changing purpose. However, this event preceded a shattering blow the following year with the passing of her father. Her relationship with her father had blossomed in recent years, bringing them closer together after an often complex association in previous years.
These events directed her songwriting back to her childhood, her early career as an actress in New York, commencing her songwriting at the age of twenty-seven, finding love and motherhood, alongside the loss of her parent. Rather than being overly melancholic, the writing is matter of fact, vividly descriptive, like postcards from various stages in her life.
‘I have to go down that trail,’ were the last words that her father spoke to her before he passed away and the opening track Down The Trail recalls one of the many childhood tales told to her by her father in the months before he died. It’s a stunning preamble, rich in orchestration, with the simple pleasure of a childhood afternoon drive through rolling fields being recounted.
The title track which follows is a physical and emotional journey taken by Speace back to the log cabin where her parents lived, shortly before her father died. On her many visits to her parents, the approach road to the house was strikingly lined by expansive farm lands, thoroughbred horses running freely. Her final journey offered an entirely changed landscape, with the lands now redeveloped for holiday homes.
Sequencing the songs in meticulous order the album kicks on to another level following those two impassioned opening tracks. The soulful and gospel-tinged Hallelujah Train is a powerful statement, celebrating her father’s final journey to his place of rest. It’s an uplifting and heart-rending testimony, crowned by a blistering vocal delivery by Speace. More solemn memories surface on the tender Father’s Day. A family photograph recalling weekends spent at their father’s wood cabin brings back innocent childhood recollections, ‘I wish I could go back there, in my dreams I go there still, when Mom snapped that picture, as we stood on that hill’.
Shotgun Hearts revives memories of living in New York in carefree younger times and with a poignant reflection on loss, Grief Is A Lonely Land also considers regret and the inability to express and articulate one’s feelings. One Year celebrates the first year in her son’s life, an event that Speace fully expected to be followed by writer’s block. On the contrary, motherhood, by her admission, has reinvigorated her writing passion, as evidenced on this project. The album bookends fittingly with a song for our times, Don’t Let Us Get Sick, written by Warren Zevon.
An album as much in the present as in the past and a musical travel memoir, THERE USED TO BE HORSES HERE opens new doors with each repeated listen. The quality of the songwriting is matched by Speace’s crystalline vocal deliveries. Equally essential are the wonderful musical contributions from The Orphan Brigade team of Ben Glover, Neilson Hubbard and Joshua Britt, who also are credited with co-writes on Halleluiah Train and the title track. The trio, together with Speace, also produced the album, which was recorded over a four-day period at Skinny Elephant Studios in Nashville.
Tragedy and heartache are often the most provocative triggers that inspire songwriters and Amy Speace has channeled those emotions to perfection on this album. With the exception of Roseanne Cash’s’ BLACK CADILLAC, I cannot recall an album that addresses those sentiments as profoundly and eloquently.
Review by Declan Culliton
Minor Moon Tethers Ruination/Whatever’s Clever
Chicago based band Minor Moon present their cocktail of present-day cosmic Americana on the rousing TETHERS, their third studio album. Led by multi-player Sam Cantor, who is also a sideman in indie band Half Gringa, the ten tracks on offer lyrically reflect a period of transition in his personal life, while he dealt with the demise of a long-term relationship. Not surprisingly, the lyrics combine both pain and confusion, yet when twinned alongside fuzzy and lap steel guitars, intensely layered harmonies and flowing keyboards, the net result is quite uplifting.
Cantor’s last recording AN OPENING landed in 2019 and with the exception of the addition of Konstantine Stebliy on lap steel, the band members are the same combination of players on this recording. Cantor plays guitars, synth and piano and is also joined by Michael Downing on bass, Nathan Bojko on drums and Colin Drozdoff on piano and organ. The recordings were carried at Cantor’s home, Foxhall Studios, Decade Studios and finally at Public House Sound Recordings in Chicago, where engineer Dave Vettraino supervised the final mixing. To their credit, the resulting sound is spot on, extremely listenable without every being showy or over produced.
No Lightning Fix, the first single from the album, is a laid back and candid recollection dealing with loss. After a wistful start it bursts into life mid song and trots out a flashy guitar break from Cantor. Swirling guitars and layered harmonies impress on the killer track The Ground, recalling Neil Young era-EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE. It opens the album in fine style and instantly grasps your attention. Another stand out track is Under An Ocean of Holes which boasts a dreamy late 60’s British Canterbury vibe. In contrast Was There Anything Else is a no-nonsense exercise in classic power pop.
Pioneered by way of therapy and healing by Cantor, TETHERS finds the writer confronting his sensitivities, laying them bare and seeking recovery. In doing so he has created an album that offers the listener many moments of splendour.
Review by Declan Culliton
Kat Danser One Eye Open Black Hen
Her debut album was called ASCENSION, and you can certainly say that over the course of the next eighteen years, Kat Danser has seen her star both rise and shine brightly. Five releases since 2002 and a reputation for authenticity and integrity in all that she represents, this Canadian powerhouse has, once again, enlisted the rich talents of Steve Dawson as both producer and musician on this new outing. With a core band of Dawson (guitars), Gary Craig (drums) and Jeremy Holmes (bass), the album was conceived and written by Danser at her favourite, La Tienda Cigar Shop in Edmonton, Canada.
Having also studied Cuban culture, Danser has a strong passion for Afro Cuban jazz and the place where it intersects with traditional New Orleans music. Six of the tracks include a full horn section with Kat recording her vocals in Edmonton, and other musicians located at separate locations, while Dawson directed affairs from his Henhouse studio in Nashville. Although they were not able to record in the same room together, the many talents of Dominic Conway, Jeremy Cook and Malcolm Aiken on horns and Kevin McKendree on keyboards, plus Daniel Lapp on violin, trumpet and tenor guitar, all come together in a potent playing mix.
On this release, Kat has also used her love of blues to great effect, beginning the record with superb piano and guitar parts, a great horn arrangement and her vibrant vocal soaring above it all on Way I Like It Done. She ends the track with the words ‘welcome to the party everyone,’ and that really sums up the thirty-eight minutes of superbly crafted music included here. Blues and jazz have always influenced each other and the Mississippi delta, homeplace of the blues, is just a short distance from the New Orleans territories.
The vibrant arrangements include two cover versions, the first, a happy rendition of the late '20s classic, Bring It With You When You Come, by Gus Cannon and the Jug Stompers. They were the premier jug band of those heady days of genre fusion, from skiffle to barrelhouse blues. The joyous sound of this track , with lots of New Orleans sassy attitude and rhythmic swing is really all you need. The second cover, Get Right Church, is a Jessie May Hemphill country blues song from North Carolina that is given a new treatment and additional verses by Kat. The gospel blues feel is what roots music is all about, coupled with the message ‘Don’t get so high on yourself.’
The slow burn of Lonely and the Dragon is full of atmospheric restraint with great organ and guitar sparring, and the message ‘We go chasin’ dragons all through the night, Baby, baby, you are my rock and you are my pipe.’ Frenchman Street Shake is another horn fuelled workout that inspires, with great arrangement and groove, topped by the expressive guitar sound of Steve Dawson.
One Eye Closed is a chance for the core band to release their punkabilly demons with a fine piece of playing, all topped off with an angry, from the gut, vocal attack from Kat. The electric blues of Trainwreck has a fine drum shuffle to propel the guitar runs of Dawson and the slow bluesy feel of Please Don’t Cry follows, with a wonderful violin part from Daniel Lapp, dove-tailing guitar and upright bass and brushed percussion.
End Of Days was written on the cusp of the Covid-19 shutdown last year and is a salve to soothe the troubled spirit with a soulful groove and warm organ sound to bring hope for the future. Mi Corazon (My Heart) is sung in Spanish as a love song to Havana and the influence that it holds, ‘never again be what I was, But why would I want that anyway? Every moment of my life has brought me to you.’
The music of Kat Danser brings out the inner urge to connect with something primal and embrace the rootsy part of what makes us all want to move to a groove. Music to lose yourself in, time and again.
Review by Paul McGee
Gerry Spehar Lady Liberty Self Release
Having forged a successful music career around the Colorado area in the 1970’s and played with his brother George as a duo, the Spehar brothers, Gerry hung up his guitar in order to raise a family and take a day job in banking; something that paid a lot more than the financial prospects of a travelling musician. He never stopped writing songs however and when time allowed, he returned to his passion for music.
In 2017 he released an album with his wife Susan, called, I HOLD GRAVITY, and it was critically acclaimed. A second album followed in 2018, in the wake of his wife ‘s passing from cancer, and Anger Management was a protest album aimed at the injustice of the Trump presidency and the lack of basic human kindness that it encapsulated in the policies and rhetoric.
This three-track release is really an addendum to the last album and comes in the wake of the Trump reign having come crashing down around the heads of the Republican party. The songs look at some key issues and themes with title track, Lady Liberty, Day One, dedicated to the Statue of Liberty and John Lewis, the famous Civil Rights leader and statesman. It holds dear to the principles of freedom and equality, with room for everyone to live in peace.
Laura Dean is based around the real-life trauma of the COVID-19 healthcare workers who risk their lives for others during this pandemic. It’s a song that is a tribute and a prayer to raise awareness of the selfless work being done ‘Across a thousand miles of prayer, Grandkids wish they could be there, Laura Dean sits by another bed, stroking someone else’s hair.’
The album is co-produced by Spehar and Paul Lacques (I See Hawks In L.A.), with the assistance of stellar musicians, Joe Berardi (drums, percussion), Marc Doten and Rick Moors (bass), Gabe Witcher (fiddle), Javi Ramos (guitar), Erinn Bone (trumpet) and vocalist, Christine Spehar. Paul Lacques also adds some very fine lap steel and electric guitar and it all comes together on the twelve-minute final track, Immigrant Suite, which is broken into three separate sections;
Barrier Reef, sees a young immigrant girl struggling to reconnect with her father in Virginia, ‘Papa and Grandpa swam this same river of hope, She can feel them pulling On a long, long, long, long rope.’
Boy and Beast, has a 12-year-old boy riding the train north to find his mother in Los Angeles, ‘The men in the boxcar, he steals them smokes, To buy their protection because he’s twelve and he’s broke.’
Meet Me at The Moon, tells of a farm labourer grieving for his daughter who didn’t make it out of Guatemala alive, ‘We were planning to send her up north to me, She never made it home ‘.
These songs are based on the real-life stories of three Central American youths, seeking the promise of a better life in America and are beautifully delivered by Spehar. Ultimately, a celebration of hope over darkness and a message that experiencing hard times builds a greater resolve to endure and survive.
Review by Paul McGee
The Joe Stamm Band The Good and the Crooked (and the High and the Horny) Self Release
The Joe Stamm Band make a celebratory roots-rock sound, with jangling guitars and plenty of sassy attitude. It’s a sound that gets you dancing and the blend of different influences, where traditional Honky Tonk meets Americana, is a compelling mix.
Growing up in a small town in midwestern America has the benefit of seeing life unfold among a community of local folks that carry similar values around education and working influences. Joe Stamm was one of those kids who embraced all aspects of his upbringing, from the school days of his youth, through to the college years and a promising football career, cut short by injury.
Picking up the guitar however, put Stamm on a different path, culminating in this debut album which comes on the back of a number of previous E.P.’s and a live solo outing. He has also spent the last five years earning his success while touring and refining his sound across the States. As debut albums go, this one is very self-assured and engaging. "Songwriting is where experience and imagination meet," says Stamm on his impressive website and these eleven story songs contain lots of life-lesson nuggets, in addition to some personal experiences.
The band sound is described as “Black Dirt Country Rock” and coming from Illinois, it’s an 800-mile drive, straight into neighbouring state, Oklahoma, to the home of Red Dirt music. If you were to continue on the same journey, you could drive straight onto Texas and the famous Outlaw Country sound. So, his influences are clear and the spirit of the movement that broke away from the conservative chains of the Nashville directed Pop-Country music is very evident in the songs here.
His band comprises Dave Glover (electric guitar, keyboards, vocals), Bruce Moser (drums, percussion, vocals), Dave Zollo (piano, organ), Jonathan Byler Dann (bass, keyboards, vocals). Stamm writes all the songs and contributes on guitar and lead vocals.
THE GOOD & THE CROOKED (& THE HIGH & THE HORNY), is a great album title and the track itself kicks things off with a look at growing up, sowing your wild seeds and ‘Running from the Devil and the Lord at a breakneck pace.’ The bravado and attitude carry on with Bombshell and a song that rocks out with a warning to stay away from the dangers that a female predator brings.
Things slow down for Good Times and a look at a troubled soul, down on his luck and lacking any plan, ‘Everything I’ve ever done wrong keeps running through my head, And everything I’ve got to do today keeps me in this bed.’ Some nice guitar on this slow burn track with atmospheric organ swells. Bottle You Up is another slow number, a relationship song where the prospect of getting high together is the main attraction and the gift that keeps on giving.
The fun lyric of Blame It On the Dog is a chance for the band to show off their Country licks and the guitar twang is wrapped by the solid rhythm. Equally, the Honky Tonk style on Lower When I’m Sober shows the band on a roll and enjoying the opportunity to play off each other. The chorus of ‘I get down when I get drunk, But I get lower when I’m sober,’ is one of those classics that you just know sounds great when you are watching the band live and singing along!
Twelve-gauge Storyline is a look at what happens when you mess with the wrong guy or start chatting up his girl at the bar, ‘ There’s a couple of ways of doing things in this land, The letter of the law or the spirit within a man.’ Again, a great band groove with some fine guitar runs.
Coming Home Again is a song that has the girlfriend’s car disappearing from view and their last argument spinning round his head, while the attitude on Pearls To Pigs is to get out of sleepy towns and escape to Texas in search of some real action. Wild Imagination, is just that, a night of partying with the wrong girls and having both guns and handcuffs to add to the fun. Final track, Tough Times, Hard Luck brings everything to a close with a Johnny Cash styled rhythm and an attitude that sees life as something to stand up to and not get kicked around – the band really pulling out all the stops on an up-tempo workout and some lyrics that you won’t hear on the radio.
Jo Stamm is certainly working hard at building a lasting career, leading his band of road warriors and delivering an album rooted in all-American storytelling and guitar-driven swagger. An Excellent debut.
Review by Paul McGee
Breanne Marie & The Front Porch Sinners Juniper Self Released
The Duluth, Minnesota singer/songwriter released her debut album in 2013 and since then put together her band The Front Porch Sinners, whose name suggests the blend of acoustic and electric elements in their sound. The former is exemplified by the fine fiddle playing of Kailyn Spencer and Kyle Gondick Anderson’s upright bass, who also adds electric bass to other tracks here. The latter is given rein by Evan Tepler’s electric guitar and Johnny ‘Blaze’ Peterson on pedal steel. Chris Petrack handles percussion, Matthew Sjelin plays piano and Matthew Leibfried contributes trumpet on occasions. The band are led by Breanne Marie Tepler, who also plays some trumpet and acoustic guitar, while delivering some delicate and melodic folkish vocals. She is the writer of all the songs featured, except for one song from outside songwriter Kirk Kjenaas, the atmospheric Dead Man Walking.
The self-written songs are a reflection on some darker and sadder moments, including the recent death of her brother. But there are wider themes also, such as the break-up of a relationship in Between You And Me. There is melancholy elsewhere with Too Tired To Cry, a song that relocates the coldness of grief with the weather in Minnesota. The song also reflects on the loss of close family members which finds her “Chasing ghosts again this week / looking for you in my sleep.” Hard Time is about trying to ease a lasting personal pain that seems deeper than before. Equally there is sense of love and hope in Love Is A Song and the need to embrace those relationships that are positive and life affirming, despite any obstacles that might arise.
The album was postponed during the pandemic, which gave Tepler some additional time to review the songs before they were recorded. Having recently become aware of ways to incorporate the highs and lows associated with lockdown into the writing process, something that gives the album that balance between the positive and negative. This is also tempered by the Minnesota climate and landscape. The title relates to the juniper tree’s ability to survive in a sometimes harsher landscapes.
The album opens with Central Hillside ’91 and it sets the tone for what follows with its energy and relationship between the then and the now. It is something of a standout track as is the song Dead Man Walking, which has an intro of guitar, drums and trumpet and has a touch of the soundtrack about it, with lyrics dealing with the dark and metaphysical nature of the protagonist.
JUNIPER is an album that has grown on me as I got further acquainted with the songs and the notable playing of the band and may find some favour with Zoe Muth and Eilen Jewell fans.
Review by Stephen Rapid
The Shootouts Bullseye Soundly
Great songs, great picking, great singing - so says producer Chuck Mead of this new album from The Shootouts. “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” you might say, but in this case Mead has hit the bullseye. He is in a pretty good place to judge, taking into account his pivotal role in bringing honky-tonk back to Lower Broadway in Nashville with BR 549, and their following track record as well as in his varied solo releases alongside his work as a producer.
The band are now releasing their second album and, as with the previous debut release, it is a cracking example of honky tonk which balances the sound of the traditional retro country, revitalised for the needs of today. Not that it will find it easy to fit in with the current mainstream consciousness and radio formats. However, it has a basis that is essentially timeless in having a good time, hitting the dance floor - or kitchen floor if you can’t get out to do that. The Shootouts are Ryan Humbert, who handles the lead vocals and acoustic guitar, Emily Bates on harmony vocals, bassist Ryan McDermott, Dylan Gomez on drums and lead guitarist Brian Poston. They have some notable guests on board, including pedal steel maestro Al Moss, Renae Truex on fiddle, Micah Huscher on keyboards and Mr. Mead himself steps out of the control room, for a couple of songs on acoustic guitar and harmony vocals. All in all, an impressive team who deliver the goods.
This time out the tracks are all written by the team of Humbert (4), featured player Al Moss (6) and one from Brian Poston, as well as a Humbert/Moss/Shannon cowrite Waiting On You. There are many highlights of which Rattlesnake Whiskey is one of the first. It’s all about that first taste of whiskey and what it can subsequently lead to. Hurt Heartbroke sounds like a track that BR 549 would have done back in their day, a steaming rockabilly-styled rocker. The title track is a twangy fast-paced guitar and pedal steel fuelled instrumental from Poston. Everything I Know is a throwback to the 90s and has a persistent melody that gets the toes tapping and the memories of other great tracks from that era . I Still Care and Forgot To Forget are classic heartbreak and lost love songs, the former is delivered with a sold beat and the latter is a slow steel drenched weeper. Here Comes The Blues is Bakersfield Buck through and through. All these tracks highlight the versatility of Humbert’s strong and varied vocal ability, which is backed up by Bates’ harmony vocals throughout. This allows the band to enhance the sterling contribution of the sound with some fine and dexterous playing.
In the end it is pretty much as Mead has described it, with a fun cover in the same spirit as their first album QUICK DRAW, designed, alongside his musical duties, by Ryan Humbert, with a knowing nod to pulp western paperback covers and B-movie cowboy poster graphics. This is a rewarding album on a number of fronts and one that will entertain those who like their country music to have a Janus head atop a cowboy shirt.
Review by Stephen Rapid
West Of Texas Heartache, Hangovers & Honky Tonks Planet Valley Ranch
Certainly one of the most entertaining on-the-money straight down the line honky-tonk albums I have had the pleasure to hear in recent times. Those of us seeking the real deal will know a wide range of independent artists whose recordings still believe in the old school sounds that emanated from the dancehalls and honky tonks over the last eighty years or so. The title alone of this album will set your expectations up and it doesn’t disappoint. In the main this is the work of Jerry Zinn and a bunch of equally enthusiastic and talent players who support Zinn’s songs and vision. He has written the majority of the material himself, as well as having a hand in the additional three co-writes.
Zinn was also involved in the production alongside Rich McCulley, Jason Eoff and Jeremy Long. The latter also contributes some vibrant Telecaster twang as well as baritone and pedal steel guitar. However, that’s not all, as he also adds bass, piano, accordion and cabasa. There are others supporting players of note here including the excellent guitarist Dave Gleason (on two tracks) - a fine artist in his own right. Jordan Shapiro and Gary Brandon are both featured on pedal steel on selected tracks. The rhythm section is ably handled by bassist Dale Daniel and Erik Herrera on drums. Not to mention the contributions from and Rob King, Rich McCully, Robert Black and David Serby (another performer with his own solo albums). Finally, the fiddle is played by Dan Weinstein and Phil Gleen. It’s a large cast indicating that the album was recorded at a number of different sessions and times over the last few years, considering this there is a consistency overall that might suggest otherwise.
The theme of these songs fits neatly into what you expect on album of this title. The lyrical content is riddled with loss, loneliness, regret and, perhaps, the inevitable alcoholic intake that either seeks absolution or oblivion. The latter is front and centre from the opening song My Whiskey Life and recurs in Watchcha Drinkin’ and 12 Steps To Drinkin’. The cause of a lot of this consumption is the loss of a good/bad woman. The two inevitably collide too, hence If You Were In My Shoes, Cheatin’, Drinkin’ Hurtin’ and The Sound Of My Heart Breakin’ (there ain’t no g’s around these parts). Another topic that reflects a life lived under the rules of a maintaining a honky tonk lifestyle is Dead End Job Blues. Particularly notable as an immediate standout, in what is a pleasurable listening experience from start to finish, The Cost Of Lovin’ You. As is the accordion-fronted paean to a local red-headed girl that is Bayou Boy. It is not only is about a sense of lust, but it is one delivered with a sense of that Louisiana locality. Sign Of A Broken Heart and If You Were In My Shoes are another couple melodically memorable tracks. But as already noted, this fine album is full of beer-assisted genuine country dance floor moments. that may, right now be restricted to the comfort of your own home.
Much of the effectiveness of this album is down to Zinn’s vocal ability and his lyrics, which sound as though they could have been written and recorded by many of the masters of the genre over the last seventy years or more. This is a honky-tonk delight, from the retro styled-cover back and front (by Stroughton Old Style Record Jackets - where Zinn holds down a day job), to the album and song titles and the contributions of all the players alongside Zinn’s central vision. An album that comes from west of Texas to the waiting world.
Review by Stephen Rapid