Ten years on from their debut release, the fifth album from the band from Virginia delivers heavy on the rock, less on the country.
Two years on from their highly regarded album “Fortune Favors The Bold”, which featured strongly in the end of year Country albums lists with such revered names as Rolling Stone Magazine, Bandcamp and No Depression, 49 Winchester are back with their much anticipated follow-up “Leavin’ This Holler”. The album finds Stewart Myers back in the producer’s chair and features contributions from singer-songwriter Maggie Antone, fiddle player Phillip Bowen and, somewhat surprisingly, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.
The new album kicks off with ‘Favor’, drawing from the same well as their most recent offering with plenty of finger-picked guitar and fiddle against the powerful vocals of frontman Isaac Gibson and his blue-collared narratives. Here his delivery is comparable to a preacher and sermon as he sings “God can be rough on the righteous, make them lean hard on their strength”, but this is very much a song of hope for the working man and woman. Gibson’s poetry is awash with sagacious observation declaring, “Tough times don’t last, Tough people do”, as the track builds to a crescendo driven on by a heavy percussive beat. That increase in rhythmic tempo is magnified throughout the following number ‘Hillbilly Happy’, which traverses at a frantic pace, as if Billy Ray Cyrus had just joined Motorhead. Yes, it still displays its country plumage, but any deft touches are sacrificed for full-throttle rock ‘n’ roll. The Banjo that underpins third track ‘Yearnin’ For You’, returns the band to its Appalachian homeland, and though Gibson’s lyrical narrative on ‘Make It Count’, ruminates on the passing of time the power chords of the guitars suggests their focus is clearly on the future possibilities of playing stadium arenas.
The album peaks with the title track, where Gibson’s poetry craves the opportunity to “escape the madness”, and “find a love that’s true and free”, wonderfully supported here by Antone on vocals helping to restore some of the subtleties and colour that is too often lost beneath the weight of thinking bigger and louder is better. This quality is maintained on ‘Tulsa’, a ‘life on the road’, ballad with a strong narrative and powerful chorus, while ‘Rest Of My Days’, has some tasty Pedal Steel and horns, all helping to create a certain Leon Russell flavour. Elsewhere ‘Fast Asleep’ and ‘Anchor’, both employ the assistance of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra but rather than assisting in broadening the band’s musical palate it just helps to accentuate the confusion, adding too much saccharine, and thus creating a sound reminiscent of the Rob Thomas led Matchbox twenty.
‘Leavin This Holler’, does contain some fine songs, with strong melodies and, at times, engaging lyrical narratives. However, and probably in anticipation of playing bigger stages to larger audiences, the band have allowed much of their Appalachian roots, so prevalent on earlier releases, to be buried beneath a rather heavy-handed arrangement that finds them now inhabiting a musical landscape more akin to that of bands such as Blackberry Smoke. In truth this may well have been the intention, but it does leave the feeling that whatever has been achieved something a little bit special has been misplaced in the process.
