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LucindaWilliams

STONEY LARUE
Velvet

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Stoney LaRue arrived on the crest of the last decade’s Red Dirt music wave and found himself an icon after one very independent record. When you’re working a motif of mystical drifter or rogue loner, the “gone” defines you, your wide-open heart and hand making you a blank slate of possibilities. And LaRue rode that reality hard. Six years passed and there was no new music (apart from a live album) to show for all the sold-out shows, burned-down nights and fans who clamored to be part of the movement. Trouble, though, is the longer you wait, the greater the expectations become.

“Dressed” — The first track on the long-awaited Velvet — opens with a marching drum corps rhythm pattern and an acoustic guitar picked by Randy Scruggs, demonstrating LaRue has come to stare down the barrel of that gun of expectation. He recognizes that while “drifter” is a romantic perception, rootlessness is tricky when one’s persona depends on it. What emerges over the 10 songs is the sense of a man not quite at home in the world, yet impossibly aware of his own foibles. Produced by Frank Liddell and Mike McCarthy in Nashville, this is hardly machined roots country — the sense of fingers on strings bleeds through, the two drummers tangling in each other’s rhythms adds a texture and resonance — yet it is still light years from his first organic record, 2005’s The Red Dirt Album.

Professionalism doesn’t have to cancel the musical chemistry. There is a dangerous sizzle to “Look at Me Fly,” a paean to the wages of being on the run and working without a net, that is terse, while “Travelin’ Kind” ambles with a loose shuffle and a melody that carries the notion of people who can’t grasp the lure of rambling. “Sirens” bristles with the need to bolt, the real-life outlaw swagger far smaller and more frenetic. Desperation infuses the dobro that whirls and blares over a beat that propels LaRue’s tension-charged vocal. Equally consuming is “Has Been,” about a stiff-lipped old love unwilling to accept that he can’t make the romance work, asking for one more try. With Jim Hoke’s steel guitar dripping tears and lava-lamp molten notes, the eternal hope in the midst of the knowing creates a juxtaposition to the dancehall feel of the track.

Knowing one’s limitations is what makes Velvet fascinating. The title track is built around the notion of wanting something, realizing the inherent wreckage of the desire and wishing to protect the beloved from the fall out. Vulnerable, aware, cursed and wanting, it is a complex cocktail of emotions tethered to an almost Buffalo Springfield-feeling acoustic guitar part and a few steel droplets for shimmer. Hesitant, yet unable to stay still, LaRue’s voice — frayed a bit at the edges, solid at the core — reaches out engagingly, “Come on down, but watch the first step/Don’t do anything you might regret/Cause you’re far too innocent … to suffer …”

LaRue co-wrote nine of the songs with Mexican-born, Texas ex-patriot Mando Saenz, lending Velvet a definite sense of cohesion. Affirming in its willingness to be broken, inspiring in its resilience, this is thinking man’s country, played from the heart by some of the very best musicians there are, and produced to keep the glop, slop and slickness off the tracks. Perhaps more people could take a lesson. — HOLLY GLEASON

 

Lisa Morales

JASON BOLAND & THE STRAGGLERS
Rancho Alto

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Springing out of Stillwater right around the same time as fellow Okie heavyweights Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jason Boland & the Stragglers have been a fixture on the Red Dirt music scene for over a decade. Thanks to solid lyrics, excellent musicianship, and a relentless touring schedule, the band has amassed a large and loyal following throughout Oklahoma, Texas and the surrounding region, with their 1999 debut, Pearl Snaps, considered by many fans to be a classic in its own time. More recently, both the last studio recording (2008’s Comal County Blue) and the 2010 live set High in the Rockies flirted with the top 30 on the Billboard country music charts. Pretty impressive stuff from a band that did not have a national label well into their first 10 years together together.

  Over the past several years, though, Boland seems to have lived a real-life country western song. But instead of mama, trains, trucks, and prison, he’s dealt with car crashes, recovery from vocal polyps and alcoholism, and divorce. Rather than imploding, Boland channeled the energy into making Rancho Alto, a record that manages to be by turns pragmatic, prayerful, and defiantly pissed off. The album finds Boland and his Stragglers — Roger Ray (lead guitar, steel and dobro), Jeremy Watkins (fiddle), Grant Tracy (bass) and Brad Rice (drums) — in fine form, moving seamlessly between fiddle-driven country (”Forever Together Again,” “Between 11-2”) and a sinuous boogie groove (“Pushing Luck”). Boland’s honey-sweet baritone shows no sign of damage from the throat surgery that sidelined the band just as they were getting ready to release Comal County Blue.
  Two of the strongest cuts channel the inimitable Woodie Guthrie, a fellow Okie. In “Woody’s Road,” Boland uses snippets of Guthrie’s lyrics to paint a picture of the original rambling man, who spent most of his time on the planet traveling, singing, and generally pointing out injustices wherever he went. The line, “From the frozen heart of darkness/to the light that burns inside/somehow you got to learn just to let it flow” is both part homage and part confessional. Boland also channels songwriter Greg Jacobs’ “Farmer’s Luck” into a modern-day populist anthem about the ugly side of eminent domain. Part spoken word, part revival stomp, the song stands up well alongside Guthrie’s best.

The two Woody-inspired tunes aside, though, there’s not really a unified arc at work here. Rancho Alto is no concept album, just a solid collection of glittering Red Dirt gems, some larger and finer than others. But more than anything else, it’s a document of a really good country band lead by a frontman back in top form. — LAURIE BARKER JAMES

Todd Snider

VARIOUS ARTISTS
This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark

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Tribute albums usually fall into one of two categories. The more dubious variety usually come with considerable hoopla, bankrolled by major labels and stuffed with big-name acts hot off the charts but with tenuous-at-best ties to the artist being honored. A track or two might occasionally stick out as genuinely inspired, but most of these projects invariably feel like Frankenstein cash-grabs, as soulless and scatter-shot as the soundtrack to a summer blockbuster.

And then, there’s the other kind — the ones that work. You can usually spot ’em by the list of participants alone, when not a single name sticks out like a sore thumb and makes you go, “Huh?” They read like a who’s who not of who’s hot, but of who the honoree might have handpicked himself, ranging from close friends and peers to kindred-spirit chips off the old block. That still doesn’t always guarantee a great album, but it does herald a true tribute with heart and intentions in the right place. This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, lovingly assembled by co-producers Tamara Saviano and Shawn Camp, falls squarely into the second category, and it’s the best of its kind since 2001’s Poet tribute to Townes Van Zandt (to which Clark himself contributed a sterling cover of “To Live’s to Fly.”)

Van Zandt isn’t around to repay the favor, but his son John Townes Van Zandt II is, contributing a solo acoustic reading of Clark’s “Let Him Roll” in a hauntingly familiar voice. The younger Van Zandt has performed and recorded before (including a track on his father’s tribute), but he’s never made music his profession; he’s included here because he just belongs on a record where bonds of kinship — by blood, spirit or shared experiences — are given precedence over lip service and star power.

That’s not to say there aren’t “stars” on This One’s for Him, which spreads 30 tracks (and 33 artists) across two hour-long discs. Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and of course Willie Nelson — among many other notables here — are all bona fide legends in their own rights. The post-Heartworn Highways generation is represented here, too, from Lyle Lovett to Clark’s longtime guitar sidekick Verlon Thompson and on down to Austin up-and-comers the Trishas. But icons and young guns alike all come together here as equals, each taking a page from the Clark songbook not to try to assert themselves and outdo each other but rather just to honor the handiwork “and make old Guy proud of us,” as Crowell quips before kicking the whole thing off with “That Old Time Feeling.”

Eight of the songs here come from Clark’s timeless 1975 debut, Old No. 1, but the rest of his catalog is also represented, right up to selections from 2009’s Somedays the Song Writes You and even one brand new song. Most of the tracks were recorded with one of two Camp-led studio bands (in Austin and Nashville), lending the entire album a stylistic cohesion that’s rare on projects featuring so many different voices. The arrangements for the most part stay true to the spirit of the originals, with every melody and sometimes — most notably on Vince Gill’s “The Randall Knife” — even some of Clark’s signature vocal inflections kept intact. Of course a case could be made — and every artist on here would probably back it up — that nobody sings Clark songs better than Clark; still, there’s something about hearing a different voice (or voices) on every track here that makes each song stand out in a way they might not on a standard Clark “best of” anthology. No matter how familiar you might be with Old No. 1, hearing a song like “Instant Coffee Blues” sung by a woman (Suzy Bogguss) reveals a whole new level of palpable loneliness. Also on disc one, Lovett lifts “Anyhow I Love You” high up on a majestic pedestal, Nelson puts his distinctive Trigger-and-Mickey Raphael stamp on “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train,” Ray Wylie Hubbard’s wearied but personable rasp seasons “Home Grown Tomatoes” like cracked pepper, and James McMurtry’s steely voice lends extra chill and conviction to the poet’s lament of “Cold Dog Soup.” Meanwhile, “Magdalene,” “All She Wants Is You,” “Worry B. Gone” and “Baby Took a Limo to Memphis” — all lesser-known Clark songs of relatively recent vintage overshadowed by stronger songs on their respective original albums — are given vibrant new life here by Kevin Welch, Shawn Colvin, Rosie Flores and Hayes Carll.

The lineup on disc two is just as strong, with Americana stalwarts Earle, Joe Ely, and Radney Foster tackling Clark standards “The Last Gunfighter Ballad,” “Dublin Blues” and “L.A. Freeway” with faithful reverence. But here again, it only takes a pinch of fresh perspective to really make some of these songs jump out and sound brand new. Prine and Harris transform “Magnolia Wind” into a heart-achingly beautiful duet, and Terri Hendrix’s wistful harmonica lights up “The Dark” while still respecting its mystery, her expressive vocal escalating from hushed awe to restless, childlike wonderment as Camp matches her note for exhilarating note on mandolin. Elsewhere, Patty Griffin’s gorgeous, soaring “The Cape” and Kristofferson’s croaky and weathered “Hemingway’s Whiskey” are compellingly paired like beauty and the beast, while Robert Earl Keen nails the boyish, giddy rush of “Texas 1947” and Jack Ingram reminds just how good he really can be given “Stuff That Works.”

Jerry Jeff Walker, who was covering Clark long before anyone else here had probably even heard of him, provides the perfect endnote. Coming after the stately reflection of Terry Allen’s “Old Friends” and the Trishas’ exquisitely harmonized “She Ain’t Going Nowhere,” his breezy, laid-back delivery of the previously unrecorded “My Favorite Picture of You” feels more like a casual visit with a tried and true compadre than the unveiling of a new masterpiece. But on this kind of tribute, that’s exactly as things should be.
— RICHARD SKANSE

 

Todd Snider

GUY CLARK
Songs and Stories

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Guy Clark already issued his definitive live album, the aptly titled Keepers, 14 years ago. Having released four more studio albums since then, he’s been overdue for a new live record to pick up where Keepers left off, but Songs and Stories doesn’t quite measure up to that gold standard. Only three of the songs here were featured on the previous live set (“L.A. Freeway,” “Homegrown Tomatoes,” and “Out in the Parking Lot”), but because Clark generously hands the mic over to his co-writing and stage companions Verlon Thompson and Shawn Camp for two songs a piece here, there’s not a whole lot of room left for him to showcase his latest and greatest. But what is here is a treat (including the newer “Maybe I Can Paint Over That” and the not-so-new “The Cape,” “Stuff that Works,” “The Randall Knife” and “Dublin Blues”). The Thompson and Camp tunes hold their own, too (and both of Camp’s songs, “Sis Draper” and “Magnolia Wind,” were Clark co-writes that Clark himself has recorded), and Clark is in fine, toasty form vocally. The “stories” promised in the album’s title are merely short but sweet, humorous song intros (or in the case of “L.A. Freeway,” a mid-song interlude). By all means, keep your Keepers; but if you’ve got an hour to spend with three old friends swapping just enough great tunes to leave you wanting more, Songs and Stories hits the spot. — RICHARD SKANSE

Todd Snider

RECKLESS KELLY
Good Luck & True Love

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The guys in Reckless Kelly are not known for shying away from a good time or from imparting that sense of boot-stompin’ fun to their audiences. So it’s a little surprising to note that the major mood permeating Good Luck & True Love is melancholy. There’s an inescapable sense that the wandering life has worn them down, that disappointments have taken their toll and that luck and love have run off together, despite lead singer-songwriter Willy Braun’s assurance that not every song is autobiographical.

The album, their debut release on their own No Big Deal Records, contains a little more introspection and a little less swagger than we’ve heard in the past from Braun and the band. But by dropping some of the bravado, he gives us more naked honesty — and lyrical strength — than he’s ever conveyed before. There’s serious heartbreak in “Weatherbeaten Soul” and “I Stayed Up All Night Again” (“It ain’t the first time I stayed up all night again writin’ a song about you”). And despite the cheery chorus in the rockabilly-tinged title tune, the call-and-response lyrics (“I don’t believe in good luck/I don’t believe in true love”) speak volumes.

“Save Me trom Myself” nostalgically references the ties that bind — in his case, a super-strong family that includes brothers Cody (fiddle) and sometime-writing partner Micky (of Micky and the Motorcars), who contributed to “Guarded Heart.” The charming “I Never Liked St. Valentine,” co-written with Todd Snider, is another declaration about being unlucky in love. But in the end, with the rockin’ “Hit the Ground Runnin’,” — a song tailor-made for a truck commercial — Reckless Kelly declares once again that the road is their main mistress. And they’re going to stick together for a long, long time.
— LYNNE MARGOLIS

 

jesse dayton

MICKY AND THE MOTORCARS
Raise My Glass

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Let’s raise a glass to younger sons everywhere. To the eldest go the first rights of inheritance, the glories of first conquest, dibs on the top bunks and the good fortune of never having to prove themselves in the imposing shadow of an older sibling. Or siblings. By the time Micky and Gary Braun steered their own band onto the Austin music scene, older Braun brothers Willy and Cody of Reckless Kelly already had a mighty lead on them. But the scrappy Motorcars stayed the course, and with their fifth studio album, Raise My Glass, they’ve closed the gap to a dead heat (artistically, at least). Of course, this being the Braun clan we’re talking about, there’s not really much of a sibling rivalry going on here, with Reckless Willy contributing co-writes to three songs, including the steady rolling sleeper standout “Never Been Out West.” But it’s the opening title track, co-written by frontman Micky with Dustin and Savannah Welch and Dustin’s frequent collaborator Jeremy Nail, that really sets the tone here, swinging lines like “I only live to become a ghost” down a darkened street with the swagger of a battered but defiant young Brando. The music throughout is taunt and confident, straight-ahead roots rock ‘n’ roll for the most part, buoyed by catchy hooks and the occasional touch of lonesome country (”Odessa Snow”) and bluesy soul (”How Far I’ll Go,” a Micky and Kevin Welch co-write that makes great use of co-producer Bukka Allen’s keening organ work). There’s really not a throw-away in the bunch here, though that stone-cold killer of an opener isn’t truly matched until the very last song, the excellent “St. Lucy’s Eyes.” — RICHARD SKANSE

 

Todd Snider

ELI YOUNG BAND
Life at Best

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With fourth album Life at Best, their first in three long years, Denton’s Eli Young Band seems to be getting the best of life. Their transition from an indie to a major label worked out pretty well on 2008’s occasionally uneven Jet Black and Jealous, which charted four singles nationally, including the Top 20 hit “Always the Love Songs.” The new album’s “Crazy Girl,” a clever spin on the classic country double entendre tradition (from the prolific pens of Lee Brice and Liz Rose), is already a huge hit with 615,000 in digital sales and counting, earning the band its first gold record award. Clearly, Nashville and producers Frank Liddell (who exec produces here) and Mike Wrucke (who’s behind the board) have been good to these four University of North Texas buds, whose new album is their best, and most reflective yet. The album gets some A-list contributions from some A-list songsmiths, most notably the aforementioned “Crazy Girl” and Will Hoge and Eric Paslay’s “Even If It Breaks Your Heart,” a confessional about musical dreams and the toll they can exact. It sets the tone for an album that effectively navigates the joys and perils of a crazy life in the music game. But the band members, particularly singer-guitarist Mike Eli, have developed into accomplished songwriters themselves. Eli’s haunting, minor key “Skeletons” tries to atone for past sins, “My Old Man” makes no apologies about who he takes after and the closing title track puts their past few years into clear-eyed perspective. “You gotta make it there and then maintain,” Eli sings, something this rising band seems well-positioned to do. — DOUG PULLEN

 

Todd Snider

KEVIN FOWLER
Chippin’ Away

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It’s been a while since his last album of new material, but the release of Chippin’ Away proves that time hasn’t changed Kevin Fowler all that much. His three favorite things, at least in his songs, are still beer, chicks and trucks. And for Fowler fans, that’s cause for celebration. The sudsy honky-tonk twang that made Fowler a household name across Texas in the last decade immediately surfaces here with songs such as “Hell Yeah, I Like Beer” and “Girl in a Truck.” A handful of other tracks that stick out as readymade crowd favorites include the opening “That Girl” (about getting that gal that’s “out of your league”), “Daddies and Daughters” and “Big River.” And just in case “Hell Yeah, I Like Beer” didn’t get the point across, he also offers an anthem called “Beer Money.” Fowler doesn’t do innovative, but what he does do, he does better than anybody else on the scene or maybe in all of country music. He makes Texas country that’s fun, and Chippin’ Away is testament to his dedication to both his music and his fans, giving 100-percent to both while knocking back five or 10 Bud Lights and having a damn good time doing it. And who doesn’t like beer, chicks and trucks, anyway? — SHANE JONES

 

Todd Snider

GEORGE STRAIT
Here for a Good Time

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George Strait remains the standard by which all modern mainstream country singers are judged — as much for his classic cowboy demeanor and ability to sing songs like he’s talking to a friend as for the quality of songs he’s chosen over the course of a career that’s spanned three decades. On Here for a Good Time, a new facet of the largely silent Strait emerges: the personal revelations that — seemingly — come with writing your own songs. Teaming with son Bubba and Hall of Fame songwriter/Strait regular Dean Dillon, several songs contained on his latest mine the obvious theme of the small moments of romance. But the triumvirate also goes deeper — looking into the wages of alcoholism, forgiveness and faith for a sense of what the man behind the perfectly starched, button-down shirt ponders.

Why Strait would decide to try his own hand at writing now is hard to say; perhaps it was a curiosity about the process, or maybe a desire to speak in a more personal realm.  Regardless, there is a genuine tug to “Drinking Man,” a clear-eyed confession of the wreckage that started when “you’re 14 and drunk by 10 a.m.,”  and culminates in “Poison,” another core sample of the slow-build addiction you don’t realize is taking hold. More compassionate than high handed or judgmental, the tone of these songs  comes off as vintage Strait balladry at its finest.

Even “Three Nails and a Cross,” which takes the flash cards of hard times (the halfway house resident, the pregnant 16 year old) and suggests the classic Christian motif of forgiveness, comes off without being sanctimonious. A gentle nudge more than a fiery enjoinder, it is about the suggestion of a Higher Power, an inner peace, a state of grace that can balm the rocky places. Perhaps this reflection comes from Strait beginning his fourth decade as a top shelf country star. Whether it’s his own homage to the fans, “I’ll Always Remember You,” or a slightly world-weary read on Richard Thompson’s “A Showman’s Life” ­— a sobering reflection on everything unseen for the spotlight’s blinding glare, delivered with a gravitas that speaks to the knowing of this song from the inside out — this is a statesman looking back.

Not that all is dour and reflective in the Court of King George, though. With the percussively-driven hangover ‘n’ fishing anthem “Blue Marlin Blues” and the shuffling “Lone Star Blues,” which celebrates life as the young bucks live it, the nod to good-timing is obvious. And the title track celebrates getting what you can — even in the eye of disappointment and done wrong — with a clear-eyed bonhomie.

Is this definitive George Strait? Hard to say. Given his reticence, he is still more enigma than a “look at me, look at me, wheeee! How clever can I be…” 21st century superstar; but with the willingness to write his own songs, there’s more a sense of personal truth than ever before. Employing twin fiddles, loping ballads and splashes of piano, Strait has again crafted a collection of classic country: lean, to the point, moving from Cajun to swing, spoken revelations to romantic waltzes. After all these years, he represents all the truest forms of a genre increasingly going the way of poodle metal, bloated AC and glossed pop with steel guitar as camo. — HOLLY GLEASON

 

 

Todd Snider

Tom Russell
Mesabi

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El Paso-based troubadour Tom Russell has been on one hell of a roll over the last decade, from digging deeply into his family roots on 1999’s The Man from Gods Know Where to tunneling into his own life with 2009’s superb Blood and Candle Smoke. The well-traveled and enduring folk/country/Americana fusionist — one half of the ’70s Texas duo Hardin & Russell — strikes again with Mesabi, a powerful 13-song cycle about love, death, fallen idols and dying border towns. 

The album’s title refers to the frigid Minnesota iron range country that produced Bob Dylan, the 58-year-old Russell’s musical hero, and about the only one of his idols to survive and thrive on this collection. Dylan’s never mentioned, referred to only as “the kid” on the title cut, which opens the album by connecting the dots between a youth spent “listening to my Uncle George’s record player/While the great vinyl wheel spun round its holy prayer” and “the troubadour kid,” whose music no doubt spent a lot of time on that record player. Russell later revisits his musical hero on one of two bonus tracks, an earnest version of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall” that’s dragged down by Lucinda Williams’ indifferent vocal.

Sandwiched between are songs about his childhood “heroes and legends” who didn’t fare so well. Their work may live on, but their lives fare badly, whether it’s the drunken bitterness and “wounded sailor’s soul” of an actor who ratted out his friends during the McCarthy era in “Sterling Hayden,” or the sad demise of the man who gave pleasure to millions as the sweet singing voice of Disney’s Jiminy Cricket (“The Lonesome Death of Ukulele Ike”). He turns James Dean’s fatal car crash into a yearning for deliverance (“The Land Called ‘Way Out There’”) and offers a farewell toast to Elizabeth Taylor (“Furious Love (For Liz)”). The album’s mid-section is punctuated by songs about love (“Heart Within a Heart”) and the redemptive power of the movies (“Roll the Credits, Johnny”) before turning to bigger, more topical issues inspired by life on the border. On “And God Made Border Towns,” Russell details, with reportorial precision and a poet’s heart, the deadly cycle of drugs, immigration and death fueled by need and excess. “Our guns go ’cross the Rio Grande/Two thousand pieces everyday,” he sings with appropriate gravitas, “and the coke and weed and methamphetamine/Come sliding back the other way.” That segues nicely into the album’s most powerful song, “Goodnight, Juarez,” a chilling requiem for the once vibrant city across the river from El Paso that’s been turned into a “dark and violent battleground” by drug cartels. But he lightens the mood with “Jai Alai,” about an aging player of a game that time’s forgotten. And like the movies that created the fallen heroes he sings about, Russell gives Mesabi a happy ending, offering hope with religious overtones on “Love Abides.”

Russell uses his limited but expressive voice to great effect on these story songs, and with the help of co-producer and keyboardist Barry Walsh and a supporting cast that includes guitarist Will Kimbrough, singer Gretchen Peters and members of Calexico, he updates the folk-music traditions on which these songs are built with horns and other splashes of Mexican color. Mesabi is the sound of a master storyteller at the pinnacle of his powers. — DOUG PULLEN

 

Todd Snider

THE GOURDS
Old Mad Joy

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The Gourds have officially entered peak season. The elastic Austin-based quintet’s Old Mad Joy spikes three straight crescendos — Heavy Ornamentals (2006), Noble Creatures (2007) and the absolutely seamless Haymaker! (2009) — with a mighty exclamation point. Simply put, this is their most beefy (“Drop the Charges”) and buoyant (“I Want It So Bad”) collection yet. The winning formula: An ace behind the boards, sharp songwriting (Kevin Russell’s “Two Sparrows”) and adventurous spirit (Jimmy Smith’s “You Must Not Know”). Legendary producer Larry Campbell (Bob Dylan, Levon Helm) shows no favor, equally fortifying vibrant snapshots (Max Johnston’s excellent “Haunted”) and languid story songs (“Ink and Grief”) with kindred vision. Lyrics frequently mirror the pulsating grooves’ immediacy. “.38 pointed at my heart/Grenade pin in my teeth,” Smith sings on the gnarly Exile-era Stones dirge “Drop What I’m Doing.” “Let me drop what I’m doing/because I need you so.” Old Mad Joy might not trump Haymaker! as the band’s finest hour, but it undoubtedly thrusts them further toward the next level. Suggestion for Campbell: Score these guys a nationwide tour with Dylan. This band and these songs demand keen ears.
— BRIAN T. ATKINSON

 

 

Todd Snider

SLAID CLEAVES
Sorrow & Smoke: Live at the
Horseshoe Lounge

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his new releases, it’s a little surprising that Maine-born, Austin-based singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves hasn’t issued a live album before now, just to fill one of those gaps. But just ashas always been the case with his studio albums, when Cleaves finally delivers, he delivers in spades. Sorrow & Smoke: Live at the Horseshoe Lounge especially benefits from the long wait, because its 21-song set list (spread across two discs) serves as a career-spanning greatest-hits showcase, with plenty of room for not only all the expected Americana-radio calling cards (“Broke Down,” “Wishbones,” “New Year’s Day” and, naturally, “Horseshoe Lounge”), but equally fine “album track” gems like “Key Chain” and “Below,” more recent winners like “Cry” (from 2009’s Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away) and even a brand new song, the excellent “Go for the Gold.” The second disc even features a pair of old Don Walser covers, allowing Cleaves to dust off his impressive yodel (“You guys better have a plan B in case I go down on this one,” he quips to his band before starting the late “Pavarotti of the Plains” standard, “Rolling Stone from Texas.”) The band is technically just lead acoustic guitarist Michael O’Connor and accordion/harmonica/trumpet player Oliver Steck, but everyone crammed into the small South Austin bar (more of a neighborhood watering hole than regular music venue) plays a key part, too, whoopin’ and hollarin’ in all the right spots (including lumberjack gang vocals on “Breakfast in Hell”) and affording the quieter songs listening-room respect. Cleaves’ studio catalog is too consistently good to bypass completely in favor of any one anthology, but for longtime fans and newcomers alike, Sorrow & Smoke is essential.
— RICHARD SKANSE

 

Todd Snider

MICHAEL O’CONNOR
Devil Stole the Moon

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Some of us adjective slingers will do almost anything to avoid dropping a dreaded cliché into our prose, but every now and then, you’ve just gotta go with what fits. Rest assured, however, that calling Michael O’Connor’s Devil Stole the Moon haunting is no mere play on the title — even if it is closing in on October, the witching month, and even if that title track, a swampy, tremolo-laden tune that feels like it was lifted from the mists of the Louisiana bayou, would fit perfectly in a True Blood episode.

  A country troubadour with a rustic voice, a fondness for Neil Young and John Hiatt (exhibited on two Adam Carroll co-writes, “Raining on the Dark Side” and “Rough Side,” among others) and a sweet array of instrumental skills (guitars, pedal steel, harmonica, keyboards), O’Connor’s talents may take a few listens to absorb. Maybe he’ll snare you with the slow-simmering tale of “Poor Eddie,” or the electric chords of “Burn,” or maybe it’ll take till the gorgeous last track, “Homesick Boy.” But sooner or later, he’ll cast a spell, all right.
— LYNNE MARGOLIS

 

Todd Snider

RICH O’TOOLE
Kiss of a Liar

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Houston’s Rich O’Toole takes an awkward stumble right out of the gate on Kiss of a Liar, opening his third album with a grating faux rocker called “Red Hot Kiss” that’s as certifiable a clunker as any that the Texas country genre has produced in some time. The following “Ay Dios Mio,” featuring Josh Abbott, is better but only by a matter of degrees, mired in cliche but redeemed by a peppy if quickly forgettable chorus. But the third track’s an absolute gem: “The Cricket Song” may have already been played to death on Texas radio this summer, but it takes a cold, cold curmudgeon not to appreciate the rustic back-porch ballad’s earnest, wistful charm. Simple but true of heart, it’s a song that even a singer-songwriter of say, Lyle Lovett’s caliber, might be proud to claim as their own; careers in this genre have certainly been built on far less. From that point forward, Kiss of a Liar keeps surer footing than its shaky start, with O’Toole faring best the closer he sticks to ballads and mid-tempo numbers (”Banks of the Mississippi,” “Never Gonna Quit”) but also tackling a cover of Wilco’s “Casino Queen” (done as a duet with Pat Green) with hammy gusto. The biggest surprise is the closing Tex-Mex romp “Marijuana & Jalapenos,” which manages to be absolutely as dumb as the title promises but also twice as fun.
— RICHARD SKANSE

Todd Snider

BECK & CAUTHEN
Sons of Fathers

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Though Beck & Cauthen’s debut album was produced by Lloyd Maines and features string-wizard Corby Schaub (Ryan Bingham & the Dead Horses), this is definitely not your typical Texas country act. Well, unless your typical Texas country band traditionally features a generous heap of late-60s California harmonies (courtesy of duo San David Beck and Paul Cauthen) with a healthy side of indie crossover appeal that would likely include fans of acts such as Mumford & Sons & Bon Iver. It’s a pleasant surprise to hear songs influenced as much by the Beatles and Stones as by any household name on the Texas scene. Standout track “Wind Turbines” would seem to be a good fit for either a Wes Anderson film or an uber-cool coffee shop, and could easily be Beck & Cauthen’s “Little Lion Man” if not for the absence of superfluous f-bombs. Another highlight, “Weather Balloons,” splices a blues riff into those smooth-as-Balvenie harmonies. The bottom line is that we have a winner here, and if Beck, Cauthen, Schaub & co., play Sons of Fathers right, it won’t be a matter of the album merely making a splash on the regional level, but rather when that wave will propel them to the heights realized by the most widely accepted buzz bands in the all of Americana.
— ZACH JENNINGS