I Draw Slow Self-Titled Compass
With this being only their fifth album since they formed in 2008 (from the ashes of the much missed old time/bluegrass band Prison Love), I Draw Slow demonstrate why they are probably Ireland’s best exponents of the fusion of Celtic and American music. The core band composition of siblings Dave (guitar, vocals) and Louise Holden (vocals), along with Konrad Liddy (bass), Adrian Hart (fiddle) and Colin Derham (clawhammer banjo) has remained stable from the start, which probably contributes to the ever evolving progression of their sound towards something quite unique. Influenced by loss and tragedy over the recent couple of years, the songwriting of the two Holdens is darker than before, sometimes obscure, but always worth investing in. The sound too has moved on, with wider musical influences more to the fore.
We’re taken right back to the 60s/70s Laurel Canyon sound in About a Bird in an Airport and Copenhagen Interpretation. In the former, the unfortunate trapped bullfinch is a metaphor for the feeling of trying to extricate oneself from a complicated and smothering relationship, with the protagonist checking through security in an attempt to find escape, but ‘I swore when I left you last time/it would be the last time I’d ever leave, If I change my mind I can always find you/left of the devil, right of the deep blue sea.’ As well as co-producing with the siblings, Adrian Hart really comes into his own here on this acoustic track with his soaring fiddle wor evoking perfectly the frantic escape efforts of the trapped subject. The soundscape in Copenhagen Interpretation is even more deliciously lush, thanks in part to guest Kate Ellis (Crash Ensemble) on cello, interplaying with the acoustic guitar, banjo and fiddle, building up delicately then descending in cascades to an abrupt ending. The song, influenced by Orwell, explores the duplicity of political language, ‘yesterday you were the snake, the ladder/who are you today?’
Dearly contemplates the past through rose coloured glasses, musing that perhaps this is the best way to view it, with the repeated refrain ‘Dearly/Sincerely/Forgetfully yours’, guest Greg Felton on piano adding a delicate layer to the guitar and banjo soundtrack.
Louise Holden takes the lead vocal on all of the songs, her gorgeous voice reminiscent sometimes of the late Dolores O’Riordan, but perhaps even sweeter. As well as backing vocals from her brother, they are joined on several tracks by the ‘Choir’ of Michelle O’Rourke and Siobhra Quinlan, including on Dublin Bay, Christmas Day (another musing on a long relationship) and on Bring Out Your Dead. We go to New Orleans for the bluesy Trouble, with horns here (and on several other songs) courtesy of Bill Blackmore and Colm O’Hara.
The album ends with two evocations of first love. A Chuid den Tsaol (with an English translation in the lyrics booklet) tells of the tentative longings of a young person attempting to communicate the depth of her love for an unsuspecting other, accompanied simply by acoustic guitar, cello and beautiful double stop fiddle playing that could only be Irish (even though Adrian Hart is actually a Yorkshire man!). Leisureplex recalls, with excruciating attention to detail, the intense awkwardness of first love, which eventually fizzles out as life moves on.
Nashville’s Compass record label recognised the potential of this band over five years ago when they signed them up. Spend some time with this record and you will understand why.
Review by Eilís Boland
Emily Nennie On The Ranch Normaltown /New West
Boasting all the key components that tick the ‘modern but real’ country music box for me, Emily Nennie’s second full-length album, ON THE RANCH, is a particularly slick slice of honky tonk honed tunes. Flawless production (hats off to Mike Eli for that), impeccable playing throughout, Nennie’s classic nasally vocal purr, and some great songs, all amount to a really accomplished presentation.
Firstly, a bit of background about the currently Nashville-based artist. Born and raised in California, she was introduced at an early age to the music of Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and Jessi Coulter by her mother, and John Coltrane and James Brown by her father. Despite attending Columbia College and majoring in audio engineering, her early exposure to country music had sown the seeds for her favoured vocation and, like scores of others, she headed to Nashville to follow her dream. She didn’t waste any time in Music City, quickly finding herself on the hallowed stage at Robert’s Western World on Broadway, before independently releasing her debut album, HELL OF A WOMAN, in 2017. Steeped in a classic country vibe, that pedal steel laced album was followed by her four-track EP, LONG GAME, in 2020.
Being written while working on a ranch in Colorado - producer Mike Eli’s wife was already working there – has given her latest album an additional country and western vibe. Although, and to her credit, Nennie does not profess to be a genuine cowgirl, admitting that her duties were confined to serving meals, child minding and playing music weekly for guests at the ranch. She confesses her rural limitations on the title track (‘Well to be true, I really wasn’t much use, once the truck got to gettin’ loose, I was playin with a cattle dog’). Notwithstanding her admission, the album is packed with bona fide country songs from the word go. Opening the ten-track album in fine style is Can Chaser. Giving the thumbs up to a barrel racing rodeo queen, it sets out the primary full-on honky tonk sound that dominates much of the album. True to form she also includes a few tearjerkers, with Leavin’ and Matches ticking that box and she’s more defiant on Gates Of Hell where she gives the two fingers to a former beau.
She does stray off the page with a mildly countryfied cover of Abba’s Does Your Mother Know. In fairness, it’s not the car crash it could have been but, for me anyway, it falls way below the quality of her self-written material. She closes the record on a positive note with the chirpy Get On With It (‘Get up off your good intentions, get on with it’).
Given the exceptional playing on the album, a mention of the musicians is warranted. Producer Mike Eli also played guitar, Alex Lyon was on bass, drums and percussion are credited to Bradford Dobbs, and Eddy Dunlap played pedal steel and dobro.
All in all, ON THE RANCH finds Nenni ‘talking the talk and walking the walk’ as impressively as any country record I’ve heard this year. It’s yet another fine album coming from the growing number of female artists who are delivering traditional country music without the bells, whistles, drum beats and auto-tunes that dominates so much of the music currently coming out of Music Row. Nenni has been nominated at the upcoming Ameripolitan Awards in the Female Outlaw Artists of the Year category and has recently toured with like-minded artists, Charley Crockett and Kelsey Waldon. If there’s any justice, that exposure and this refreshing album should substantially raise the profile of this silver-voiced vocalist way beyond Nashville. Have a listen and make your own mind up. I expect that you’ll love what you hear, I most certainly did.
Review by Declan Culliton
Sterling Drake Highway 200 Orchard
Previously a published songwriter in Nashville, Sterling Drake’s six-track EP follows hot on the heels of where he left off with his previous recording, ROLL THE DICE, from 2021.
‘I always strive to create country music that is relatable, something you’d want to listen to in the feed truck,’ notes Drake about his recordings. I’m unable to confirm if that is the case, but I can verify that the album sounds fine to me playing in my VW Golf. Fiercely devoted to vintage country, his sound shifts between traditional country and western swing.
He kicks off HIGHWAY 200 with a fine reworking of the classic traditional song In The Pines, sticking closer to the countrified version recorded by Loretta Lynn than the blues rendition by Lead Belly. Next up is the title track and first single from the EP. It’s a standout track, portraying the harsh yet cherished sentiments of life as a rancher in Montana. With razor-sharp playing and a vocal to match, it doffs its cap in the direction of Merle Haggard during his late 60s purple patch. Elsewhere he goes full-on western swing with the light-hearted Bad Looks Good On You and Stuck In The Saddle is a country and western cowboy lament.
If you like your country super twangy, time-honoured, and circling back to the 60s and beyond, you’re bound to enjoy this album. Produced by Drake and Chris Weisbecker, it features dobro and pedal steel by Ryan Stigmon, and bass guitar by Gabe Tonon. Drake takes lead vocals and guitar, and Weisbecker plays drums.
HIGHWAY 200 is not going to dent the country charts or feature in what is peddled on most country radio stations, no surprise there. But it is typical of the many artists that are currently writing and recording premium country music, even if you have to often scratch beneath the surface to find them.
Review by Declan Culliton
Alex Williams Waging Peace Lightning Rod Records
'Waging Peace' is just about trying to make peace with yourself,’ explains Alex Williams, commenting on his latest twelve-track album of modern country outlaw.
To date, the Indiana-born and raised Williams’ career reads like a film script. Although relatively inexperienced at the time, the bearded, long-haired baritone, scored a major record deal with Big Machine Records and recorded his debut album, BETTER THAN MYSELF in 2017.
The possessor of a winged ‘W’ tattoo on his arm in honour of Waylon Jennings, Williams was perceived by many as the latest torch carrier in the Outlaw country genre, and one of the artists most likely to revive that tradition and introduce it to a more mainstream audience, something similar to what Jamey Johnson had achieved a decade earlier. However, not having toured prior to the release of that album, life on the road subsequently led Williams down a path of excess and recklessness. ‘Never saw the devil ‘till I went out on the road,’ he remarks on the title track, an admission of his pattern of emulating the darker side of his musical heroes Waylon and Merle’s behaviour back in the day.
Fortunately, and prior to total burnout, Williams recognised the futility and diminishing returns of those few years, and WAGING PEACE is an account of his personal grapple between righteousness and devilishness during that time. He puts his cards on the table on the album’s opener and lead single No Reservation. It’s a full-on gritty southern rocker, detailing the struggles in searching for inner peace and coping with the lures and temptations of life on the road. That big sound is repeated on Fire and Conspiracy. In contrast, tracks such as The Vice, Rock Bottom and The Struggle are self-explanatory country ballads, loaded with twang and deadly pedal steel (credit to the legendary Danny Dugmore for that) behind William’s grainy vocals. Old Before My Time is a whimsical and self-deprecating song (‘I’m at the tail end of my twenties and I’m singing songs from 1969’) and The Best Thing hints at a lot of Merle Haggard cramming.
The production is outstanding, courtesy of Grammy winner Ben Fowler (Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sara Evans, Rascal Flatt), on an album divided between themes of light and darkness, blazing anthem rockers, and more considered country tunes. It’s the ideal mix for a touring act and one, no doubt, that will raise Williams’ profile further and find him busy on the festival circuit in the coming year. Watch this space, this guy is back in the saddle and going places.
Review by Declan Culliton
Bonny Light Horseman Rolling Golden Holy 37d03d
The self-titled album by Bonny Light Horseman from 2020 suggested a one-off project by three artists with somewhat varying backgrounds, accompanied by a dozen other friends and fellow musicians. A singer songwriter and composer (Anais Mitchell), a producer and multi-instrumentalist (Josh Kaufman) and an indie pop/folk band leader and soundtrack composer (Eric D. Johnson), put their collective comfort zones to one side to create what became a Grammy-nominated collection of charming folk songs. The featured songs were reconstructions of traditional folk songs, many of which dated back centuries.
That debut recording may have remained a one-off meeting of minds, given their collective workloads and side projects. On the contrary, it appears to have aroused a desire to explore similar musical and lyrical concepts, resulting in the ten self-written songs embodied in ROLLING GOLDEN HOLY.
On this occasion the trio only called on two others to participate in the recording, J.T. Bates played drums and Mike Lewis contributed bass guitar and saxophone. Whereas the songs remain true to the template of its predecessor, they have strayed from the classic U.K. folk inspirations of that album, resulting in songs that remain fundamentally folk, but to a certain degree more Americanised, typified by the charming California, with its tale of pressing on to pastures new. Mitchell may be perceived as the frontperson, given that she takes the lead vocal on the majority of the songs. However, the contribution of her bandmates is immense. Kaufman’s guitar work in particular is striking, as are Johnson’s smooth harmonies and the suitably understated arrangements throughout.
Although they had begun working on some of the compositions soon after the release of the debut album, the ten compositions were completed in the spring of 2021 when the trio and their respective families, free from their busy work schedules, assembled in upstate New York to finalise the songs. The end product is a contemporary exploration into the common folk themes of love lost and yearned for, hopefulness and death.
Johnson takes the lead vocal on the wartime ballad Someone To Weep For Me and shares vocals with Mitchell on the gorgeous Exile. The former finds its author pleading to be remembered with dignity after his passing. The latter is an ode to a loving relationship and the realisation that it is not everlasting. Equally impressive are the powerful love song Comrade Sweetheart and the banjo-led Sweetbread. They sign off with Cold Rain and Snow. Complete with three-part harmonies it’s akin to a late 60s ‘hippy anthem’, bursting with radiant love and positiveness.
ROLLING GOLDEN HOLY opens a door to a charming array of songs whose groundwork and themes may be stimulated from previous times but are presented in a timeless manner by three like-minded artists. Tune in and prepare to be mesmerised.
Review by Declan Culliton
Chris Canterbury Quaalude Lullabies Rancho Deluxe
‘The truth doesn’t care if you choose it, a heart only breaks when you use it,’ announces Chris Canterbury on QUAALUDE LULLABIES’ opening track, The Devil, The Dealer, & Me. The lines are pointers for what is to follow on an album that deals head on with thorny issues such as mental illness, substance abuse, and addiction.
Growing up in a small town in Haynesville, Louisiana, and born into a standard blue-collar working-class family, Canterbury, like numerous artists before him, chose a wayward and honky tonk lifestyle, abandoning the advice indoctrinated in the Southern Baptist sermons that featured heavily during his younger days.
A self-produced project, he describes this collection of songs as ‘loose like a box of bedroom demo tapes, but cohesive enough to stand on its own.’ A succession of confessional tales, the album is anything but an easy listen. With lyrics as painful as an open wound, the closing track Back On The Pills leaves a lasting impression of a life journey where impending doom is never far from the surface. Tracks such as Fall Apart and Felt The Same are slow-burning stories, rich in both detail and content, reflecting on the isolation and harsh reality of the solo travelling musician. The album’s only cover is the Will Kimbrough penned Yellow Mama. The last-minute declaration of a singer as he awaits execution by way of an Alabama electric chair, it mirrors the hopelessness and prayerful nature of Canterbury’s self-written inclusions. The pedal steel laced love song Sweet Maria does offer temporary respite from the painful content of its accompanying tracks and whereas much of the material is stripped back, the fuller sound of Heartache For Hire enters Jamey Johnson’s THE LONESOME SONG territory.
Canterbury’s plain-spoken tales are painted in vivid detail throughout QUAALUDE LULLABIES. It’s anything but a Saturday night listen, simply a brutally forthright and honest testimony of self-destruction and isolation, representing quandaries that have challenged artists for many decades. It certainly captured and held my attention from the outset, as it will, no doubt, for any lover of classic country singer songwriting.
Review by Declan Culliton
Parker Twomey All This Life Self Release
Those familiar with the country soul wildcat Paul Cauthen will no doubt recognise the name Parker Twomey. Touring with Cauthen since the tender age of eighteen, Twomey has played keyboards and contributed backing vocals in Cauthen’s band for the past three years. A multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who has been writing songs since childhood, his introduction to band life was courtesy of his father who included him in his gigs at ten years of age. Attending Booker T. Washington High School in his youth, after classes Twomey’s afternoons were spent at Modern Electric Sound Recorders, working as a general dog’s body, an exercise that eventually led to assisting engineers and producers, and learning that side of the industry first hand.
Twomey’s debut album ALL THIS LIFE plays out like an old head on young shoulders. Still in his early twenties, the album reveals more grief and broken relationships than you’d expect from one of that age. Maybe that direction is more in keeping with traditional country storytelling than actual personal experience, but the title track and album opener sets that agenda from the outset. That rationale continues on the heartrending lost love song Baby, It’s Harder Way Now. It’s the standout track on the album, showcasing Twomey’s wistful vocals and the masterly group of players that joined him in the studio. Those musicians included co-producers Matt Pence (drums) and Beau Bedford (piano, mellotron, strings), together with Charley Wiles (slide guitar), and Scott Lee (bass). A fleeting encounter while on the road is recounted on Lines of Wilderness and Loving You Too Easy expresses further yearning for intimacy and companionship (‘there’s this place that I’ve seen but never been, like on the covers of postcards’). Notwithstanding the longing and angst throughout, the album does close on an optimistic note as the writer looks forward to brighter times with Family.
With arrangements that more than complement Twomey’s vocals - the strings are particularly imposing -ALL THIS LIFE is a delightful listen from an artist that touches on the grinding reality of attempting to combine his love of touring with an equally burning desire to find love and attachment. He articulates those sentiments exceptionally well with these richly constructed country songs.
Review by Declan Culliton
David Adam Byrnes Keep Up With A Cowgirl Reviver
This album follows up after NEON TOWN, the most recent album from the Arkansas native, who then located to Nashville to write songs, which turned out to have to follow the current formula of “bro-country.” But after a writing deal failed to happen as intended, Byrnes moved to the Fort Worth area of Texas, and his music soon took on the sound of the country music that they listen to and dance to down that way. He had regional hits and racked up a lot of streams and gained social media followers, as well as those who caught his shows in person.
This new collection is packed with songs that fit with country themes of relationships both good and bad, alcohol, working late, cowboy and cowgirls and his adopted State. This is reflected in titles like One Honky Tonk Town, Too Much Texas, Like I’m Elvis, Past My Bud Time, A Shot Or Two and Better Love Next Time. All are delivered with the kind of vocal resonance and attitude that fit right in with his heroes such as George Strait, Mark Chestnut and Keith Whitley and contemporaries such as Aaron Watson and Cody Johnson.
The production and playing serves to achieve a cohesive, modern yet solidly straight down the line country sound, with fiddle, steel and big guitars that is so popular in Texas but is again finding a foothold in the mainstream these days. As an additional incentive, the album has four of the full throttle songs repeated in acoustic version, which gives an insight into how Byrnes may have presented these songs as demos, or in an in-the-round setting. They show his solid vocal and songwriting in its most stripped back form. Though I imagine most will prefer his full band versions, it is an insight into his down to earth methodology.
An album that is a perfect example of good time country that will have the dancers on the floor and the drinkers raising the glasses.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Ragland Guardian Self Release
This album could readily be described as Americana in the sense it was conceived some time back. Contemporary takes on country music that are not tied to any particular sound or retro style, but instead explore through the writing many of the emotional pretexts that incorporate the light and the dark, the love and the heartbreak, those ups and downs that are part and parcel of the everyday and beyond.
The vocalist and songwriter is Autumn Ragland and this is her fourth release under that name. The writing is shared with Sam Cox who with Ragland co-wrote the material, co-produced along with Hank Early (a member of the Turnpike Troubadours) - who adds steel guitar - and Javan Long. Ragland and Cox also play guitars, drums, keyboards and harmonica, while Long also shares the drum chair.
This tight, focused and emphatic combo take a considered approach to each song, which are often different but made cohesive by Ragland’s vocal delivery, which is central to the sound. The songs take themes that many can relate to, often hinted at by such titles as Couch Surfing, I’m Not Mad, I Just Miss You, I Think I love You Too Much, Guns in The House and Throwing MY Life Away, which features Sunny Sweeney on harmony vocals.
These are, as mentioned, not the type of songs that fit neatly into a pop-country or honky tonk pigeon hole. They find their own level that is, perhaps, floating between and above both. For instance, Remember Me has a sound that could find itself gaining plays on a number of different stations. It is a contemplation on one’s place, while also wondering what the memories of those who follow one might be. It does so in a way that may well trigger a similar response in the listener, as perhaps will some of the more confrontational lyrics. Ones that confront as in Throwing My Life Away, where Ragland sums up a relationship and lifestyle with the words “I been working my ass off and people still think I’m throwing my life away … If I say too much or I don’t smile enough he’ll call me a bitch anyway.” This is delivered with evocative pedal steel and a strong melody, and shows why Ragland have musically and lyrically moved up a notch with this album.
Review by Stephen Rapid