Fresh air, clear skies and open roads from Austin, Texas duo.
Briscoe comprises songwriter duo Philip Lupton and Truett Heintzelman, lifelong friends based out of Austin, Texas. Following 2023’s “West of It All”, they have spent an immense amount of time on the road touring and writing the songs that make up their second album, “Heat of July”. They have also somehow managed to find the time to marry their lifelong partners. Both these things have unsurprisingly found their way into the fabric of the record. “We learned how to write music from behind the wheel,” Lupton notes, and certainly this record overall has the feel of the breeze blowing through your hair as you drive down an open highway.
Opening tracks ‘Saving Grace’ and ‘Arizona Shining’ exhibit their clear trademark of close harmonies and uplifting choruses – for an idea, think of the most relaxed Eagles acoustic tracks, such as ‘Peaceful, Easy Feeling’. Backed by acclaimed americana musicians such as Watch House (formerly Mandolin Orange), the songs here have an easy swing; a polish of skill and touch, but combined with the looseness of a campfire singalong.
This is a mood that is not really broken throughout, and really, why would you mess with music this naturally sounding and fresh? The (even more) good news is, there’s an additional depth to the songwriting that lifts it well beyond the average folk singer-songwriter fare.
‘Escudilla’, for example, touches on environmental themes, as the story casts the last grizzly bear as a kind of champion of the loss of wilderness. The last grizzly in Arizona was killed in 1936 on Escadilla Mountain, and Briscoe mourn the loss. “Big Bear laid his head down on sweet Escadulla’s side / a testament to everything that’s good and whole and right”.
Even more affecting is the creepingly unsettling ‘Flashlights In The Canyon’, as the pregnant female protagonist who lives close to the Mexican border sees the titular lights from her house, and tries to sleep, though with one eye open and a pistol under her pillow. In the morning, she finds a woman, also pregnant, crying for help, having been abandoned by her man to her fate. Violins scrape and cry like banshees or demons, or just the howl of a soul who is nearly lost. The song ends unresolved, and is all the more powerful for it.
Both ‘Flashlights…’ and ‘Escadulla’ are somehow more than the sum of their parts; they hint at wiser, harder and deeper things than their seemingly straightforward stories initially suggest. They are not alone on a record that sounds light, but frequently deals with heavy subjects. The truths are there if you look deeply enough.
However, lest this can sound a little too intense, the majority of the record is about as enjoyable as it gets. For example, the likes of ‘Free’, which although it touches on a slightly wry reading of the American Dream (“When you’re poor, you ain’t got no money/ when you’re rich, you ain’t free / down somewhere in the middle, that’s where I want to be”), is just a whole lot of fun – like the Band in ‘Rag, Mama, Rag’ mode, when they’re getting a bit ‘loosey- goosey’, there is a solid, joyous rolling funk to the music.
There are no weak songs here, and plenty of standouts making “Heat of July” a really a hugely satisfying listen from start to finish. For anyone who likes their americana to be closer to the folky end, but still wants something to play in the car with the ‘top down’, this is a record that is full of fresh air, clear skies and open roads.
