Power pop Christmas
With so many great Christmas songs covered and recovered ad infinitum, this Albany, New York power pop trio was compelled to write their own. Cleverly, the song expresses their inability to find a cover they can call their own. As on their recent full-length release, A Break in the Weather, the band’s guitar, bass and drums recall the power pop hey-day of the early ’90s, giving this song a rock ‘n’ roll kick that will perk up your holiday playlist. [©2013 Hyperbolium] 
Guitar-heavy power-pop that would be perfectly at home in 1991
If this album had been produced in 1991, you could have easily segued it amid The Posies, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, Velvet Crush and Adam Schmitt. But written and recorded more than twenty years later, it’s a power pop album out of time. Mixed by producer Nick Raskulinecz, the album has the in-your-face loudness of Sugar, the dynamics of an arena rock band and just a touch of pop-metal in the harder riffs. The album’s catchy vocal melodies and tight harmonies are perfectly laid into a growling bed of guitar, bass and drums; about the only thing missing is the heartsick pining that only a 20-something can really nail. Seth Powell and Mike Pauley can sing about heartbreak, but it’s more reportorial than life threatening at this point in their lives. No matter, because the songs, vocals and playing carries the band to great heights, even without the crises of in-the-moment adolescence. [©2013 Hyperbolium]
A too-small helping of singer-songwriter brilliance
Given the wealth of Paul Simon’s catalog, both in concert with Art Garfunkel and solo, and given the many reconfigurations and reiterations of this material issued on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD and digital download, it’s difficult to place the specific utility of this new 20-track collection. Six essential tracks from Simon & Garfunkel and fourteen stretching across Simon’s solo catalog provide an enjoyable sprint through forty-five years of Simon’s masterful songwriting, singing and guitar playing. But there are so many highlights and pivotal moments missing that the end result is the Cliff’s Notes of a multivolume career. Nearly every track leaves you longing to hear its album-mates, which may just be the point: this is audio catnip for luring an unsuspecting listener into Simon’s musical lair where they can mainline The Columbia Studio Recordings 1964-1970 and The Complete Album Collection. Buy this for someone who would appreciate Simon’s craft, but for some reason (youth, most likely), hasn’t yet acquainted themselves with his work. They’ll enjoy full-panel photos, song lyrics and Jesse Kornbluth’s career overview in a twenty-eight page booklet, and with any luck, ask for more. [©2013 Hyperbolium]
The master and his disciples cut a single in 1996
With a pair of indie releases behind them, and their Elektra debut, Too Far to Care, just ahead, the Old 97’s caught the ear of Waylon Jennings, who talked them up in an interview. Emboldened by this notice, the group wrote to Jennings and asked if he’d like to record together, and charmed by the invitation, he invited them to Nashville. So the quartet and the legend convened to record two originals, Rhett Miller’s “The Other Shoe” and bassist Murry Hammond’s “The Iron Road.” Prodded by a band that was as much rock as country, Jennings’ voice still had the gravity to stand out against electric guitars, bass and drums. Hammond’s opener offers the sort of introspective accounting Jennings often wrote for (and of) himself, while Miller’s tale of infidelity and revenge provides the vocalist some lyrical drama. Unexplained is how the two sides ended up being shelved for seventeen years, until their Record Store Day release in 2013. Reissued on CD, the Jennings tracks are fleshed out with four previously unissued contemporaneous Old 97’s demos, cover art by Jon Langford and liner note by Miller. Two of the demos were re-recorded for later releases (“Fireflies” for Miller’s solo album, The Believer and “Visting Hours” for The Grand Theater, Vol. 2), but these early takes, including a cover of the Magnetic Fields’ “Born on a Train,” are a nice find for Old 97’s fans. The Jennings tracks are the main draw, and they’ll please both the band’s fans, and the Jennings faithful. [©2013 Hyperbolium]
A fantastic live performance by this mid-60s British freakbeat band. Double points to the drummer Bruce Finley for his awesome tom-tom work.
Steve Poltz soundtrack for a documentary on Dayton O. Hyde
Steve Poltz’s soundtrack for Suzanne Mitchell’s documentary Running Wild: The Life of Dayton O. Hyde, features eight new lyrical songs interspersed among seventeen short instrumentals. Poltz wrote his songs after visiting with Dayton Hyde at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary he’d founded in 1988. The instrumentals tend to atmospheric and contemplative, though a few longer tracks, “Happier Hour” and “El Centro,” are full-band arrangements; the former is a bouncy country tune, the latter a growling rocker. Hyde’s background as a cowboy, rancher, rodeo rider, photographer and author were perhaps the only possible path to his ultimate role as a savior of wild horses. His accomplishments are extensive, often extending far beyond his personal well-being, and his gratitude is both deep and widespread.
Poltz employs country, rock and blues, collaborating with director Mitchell to fine-tune his songs to the film’s take on its subject’s character. The only track not written by Poltz is Lily Kaminsk’s “Phantom Love,” a haunting, lo-fi pop ballad performed by her band She Rose, and originally released in 2012. Poltz is a prolific artist and well-traveled troubadour, having released more than a dozen solo albums, including a disc full of answering machine recordings and a live CD/DVD package. But with all that under his belt, this is his first venture into soundtracks, and the flexibility of his style turns out to be well suited to both the needs of a film soundtrack and the strong character and fine shadings of this story’s protagonist. [©2013 Hyperbolium]
Day of the Outlaw front-man goes solo
Former Day of the Outlaw front man Stewart Eastham debuts as a solo with this semi-autobiographical album documenting his transition from Los Angeles to Nashville, and his rebirth in Music City. Ironically, given the genesis of his new songs, the album was actually produced by former band mate Burke Ericson in Los Angeles with West Coast musicians, including Ted Russell Kamp and steel player John McClung. Eastham began his musical journey as a drummer, working his way to the microphone of the band Minibike and its follow-on, Day of the Outlaw. As a vocalist and songwriter, Eastham’s folk-like storytelling provides continuity between the group’s two releases and this solo outing, but where Day of the Outlaw’s The Retribution Waltz leaned towards Stones-ish rock, his solo outing starts with traditional country at its core.
With change clearly on his mind, Eastham’s considered many sides of transition. The gospel-tinged opener “Let It Go” sets the stage by proselytizing an optimistic, future-facing outlook. One can imagine this song helping Eastham let go of the comfort he’d developed in Los Angeles by looking forward to the then-unknown opportunities of Nashville. That cross-country journey is essayed in the steel-heavy, foot-stomping “Born in California,” exploring the dichotomies – countryside and city, home and adventure – that have threaded throughout Eastham’s life. He describes the layer between his lyrics and characters as having gone transparent for this batch of songs, and you can feel the autobiographical connection both directly and in allegory. The co-dependent relationship of “Broken Hearted Lovers,” for example, may be a tie between people, or between Eastham and Los Angeles.
There’s a sorrowful edge to many of Eastham’s vocals, whether lamenting lost love or grappling with the ghosts that still haunt better times. His longing is sad, but not defeated, even in the face of the title track’s fictionalized horrors. He pulls out of the nosedive for the honky-tonk kiss-off “The Lights of Tennessee” and escape of “Butte County Line,” with the latter bouncing along with the small-town problems of Steve Earle’s Guitar Town set to the open-road rhythm of the Allman Brothers The album ventures away from twangy country with strings on “Someone New” and funky organ and bass on “Crawl Up Your Bottle,” but the solid singer-songwriter vibe reinforces Eastham’s decision to go solo, and the results are more personal and powerful than anything he’s recorded before. [©2013 Hyperbolium]
Band of Heathens refine and expand their sound
The Band of Heathens continues to surprise. While their new album offers up the Americana and Little Feat-styled funk fans have come to expect, there’s a thread of late 1960s production pop that’s a welcome addition. This opening track, “Shotgun,” tips the album’s surprise with its nod to “Everybody’s Talkin’.” Gordy Quist sings the opening “I heard that you were talkin’ ’bout me, I heard you had a smile on your face while you cried, cried, cried,” with a rhythm and melody that easily brings to mind Fred Neil’s original couplet. The song quickly establishes its own sound, but the unison singing, keyboards and electric sitar-like guitar preview echoes of Curt Boettcher, Gary Usher and Brian Wilson heard in several of the album’s tracks.
Ed Jurdi opens the album’s second song with a voice as warm and soulful as Quist’s. Where the opener was pleased to see an indiscreet ex-lover (or, perhaps, a recently departed, smack-talking founding member of the band) receding in the rear-view mirror, “Caroline Williams” is rife with the pain and confusion of the left behind. Recently arrived drummer Richard Millsap adds both rhythm and melody with his tom toms, and a short instrumental pairing of piano and wordless vocals echoes another element of late-60s studio pop. Jurdi and Quest wrote this album amid both personal and band changes, and transition is a running theme. In addition to relationships in formation, reformation and dissolution, there’s a longing for stability and simplicity.
The Heathens’ complexities come to the fore in the personal inventories of “Since I’ve Been Home,” the funky “Miss My Life” and the media-saturated world of “Records in My Bed.” The latter, with some terrific 70s-styled electric piano by Trevor Nealon, fondly remembers the thrill a favorite record brought in a world not yet fragmented by always-on media. Jurdi and Quist are memorable vocalists, ranging from husky soul to fragile Elliot Smith-like falsetto, but  the variety of duet styles they manage is even more impressive. In addition to rootsy blends of country and soul, they bind tightly for pop harmonies that suggest Simon & Garfunkel, CS&N and the Beatles. Nealon and Millsap have added new elements to a band that was already multidimensional, making the Band of Heathens’ fourth studio album their most adventurous yet. [©2013 Hyperbolium]
A collection of recently released country, Americana, rock and folk, plus a few catalog items for good measure. Click the artist names below for associated album reviews.
Extraordinary country, rock, folk and soul
If you didn’t know better, but you knew enough to have heard both Greg Trooper and Bob Delevante, you might swear they are brothers from different mothers. Their voices can sound so similar as to really complicate the actual brotherhood of Bob and Mike Delevante (a/k/a The Delevantes). Both Trooper and Delevante trade in country-rock, and each brings twang to the roots rock of their shared native New Jersey. Trooper adds a helping of folk and soul to the equation, giving him a range that encompasses the roots rock of Willie Nile, the heart of Arthur Alexander, Willy DeVille and the Hacienda Brothers, the emotional perception of Richard Thompson, and the character-driven stories of Nashville.
The opening “All the Way to Amsterdam” is a perfect example of Trooper’s songwriting talent, juxtaposing a drunken father with a child’s dream of escape. The song’s heart-rending hope is renewed in the quiet of night and dashed in the light of morning; but that same light illuminates the hope fostered by the ice of Amsterdam’s canals. The melody draws its own tears, but it’s the tone of Trooper’s voice (an instrument Steve Earle has said he covets), both concerned and stalwart, that gives the song its emotional punch. The country-soul of “Everything’s a Miracle” offers up a perfect combination of steel (Larry Campbell), organ (Oli Rockberger) and soulful guitar (Larry Campbell again!) to back a vocal whose heartbroken misery stems from an inability to accept happiness.
The album moves effortlessly between country, country-rock, country-soul and folk, with the richness of Trooper’s voice pairing easily with Lucy Wainwright Roche’s backing vocal on the acoustic “The Land of No Forgiveness.” Trooper’s songs aren’t as squalid as the album’s pulp cover art might suggest, nor is there a deep streak of noir’s irredeemable fatalism in his stories. Instead, he writes of troubled people, peels away at the layers of their problems and studies whether their obstacles are external or self-imposed. Some of his protagonists blame the world for their own shortcomings, but others internalize outside turmoil as if it were of their own making.
There’s salvation in the album’s gospel notes, but redemption is hard-earned rather than given. The self-loathing protagonist of “This Shitty Deal” need not apply, while the kindred spirits of “The Girl in the Blue” may just salve each other’s loneliness. It’s something of a mystery how an artist of Trooper’s artistic depth and peer respect (he’s had songs recorded by Billy Bragg and Vince Gill, and albums produced by Garry Tallent, Buddy Miller and Dan Penn), has built such a solid catalog (this is his twelfth album in a quarter century) in such relative quiet. With Stewart Lerman returning to the producer’s seat (he first worked with Trooper on 1992’s Everywhere), the results are a reward for the faithful and a treat for the uninitiated. [©2013 Hyperbolium]