Meditative melodies with an alt-country feel.
From out of the college town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Blue Cactus have here fashioned the same kind of Cosmic Americana that the likes of Marty Stuart and Kacey Musgraves have done well with in the last decade. Mario Arnez sings supporting harmonies on the album but the main vocalist is Steph Stewart, whose voice has been correctly described by another writer as a “gossamer warble”.
Stewart takes prominence on the nine tracks on this, their third album, which emerged after Stewart went through some health issues. She seems to put her life in a song on poppy album opener and first single ‘This Kind of Rain’: “the older I get, the faster time flies” is a universal sentiment that eases the listener into an album full of empathy and warmth.
Fans of Cowboy Junkies and the sort of country music that was ascribed as ‘alt-country’ three decades ago will enjoy the album. ‘Take All Day’, which features Rich Ruth on synths, is a gentle piece, elegantly sung, while after the back-masked electronica of ‘Counting the Days’ comes the thin threads of ‘Paper Cup’, where Stewart coos about wanting to be restored.
Two of the duo’s famous friends offer their pipes to the project. Brit Taylor is roped in for ‘Bite My Tongue’, whose mood evokes the music of Rilo Kiley, especially the two guitar solos which elevate the song still further. Erin Rae appears on the delightful yet melancholy ‘Resolution’ and ‘Gone’, which starts off as a waltz where the guitar echoes beneath the pair’s vocal lines, before a pedal steel pokes through for extra melancholy and the closing verse is straightened out into 4/4 time.
The title track is the literal centrepiece, placed as the fifth track and over five minutes in length, unfurling as it goes and taking the listener from movement to movement, place to place, as all great music should do.
