An honest, heartfelt set of working-class roots tunes.
For their fifth studio release, Wyoming’s The Two Tracks; husband and wife Dave (guitar and cello) and Julie Huebner (guitar), along with fellow band members bassist Taylor Phillips and drummer Fernando Serna, took a trip down from big sky country back down to Nashville, where they’ve previously recorded, enlisting the services of Will Kimbrough on production duties.
The result is Seasons Unknown: it’s a no-frills, rootsy beast in sound, starting from the opening catchiness of Mexico by Friday, with Julie Huebner’s vocal prominent amidst a bass-driven and cowbell-enhanced danceable tune. Miles and Miles introduces cello into the equation; this time, husband Dave takes the vocal duties on this insistently rhythmic paean to losing yourself on the highway, and yes, there’s, wait for it, more cowbell!
Title track, Seasons Unknown, which drops in in third position, is another delve into the overpowering effect of environment; it’s Wordsworthian in sentiment but almost REM-like in instrumentation. Vocal harmonies from the band raise it out of that territory, though, and add a shade of late-60s CSNY, making for an accessible mix.
The brisk tempo is sustained at the start of I Caught It, which embodies traces of the Allman Brothers in its guitar and keyboard figures. Lyrically, it has its roots in similar long-hair origins too and references the Doobie Brothers, Mamas & Papas, and the Pure Prairie League mid-song, wearing its inspirational heart on its sleeve. Building Walls is another song that uses a cello and vocal intro before exploding into a frantic banjo hoedown about human disconnect.
Unfinished Life, a 1981 Kate Wolf song, drops the tempo into a more reflective place, both in terms of tempo and subject matter; Julie Hueber’s vocals reflect on the varied paths we take through life. Despite the fact that it’s not one of their own, stylistically, the song fits well with the sentiments and tone of the rest of the album. There’s a similar mood on the following Lilac Weather, which deals with the passage of time and its effects on memory and emotion.
My heart is Too Easy becomes a back-and-forth duet about unreciprocated love. Based around just guitar and vocals, it’s got a bit of a Bruce Robison/Kelly Willis feel before the waltz tempo of It’s a Waltz takes over. Again, there’s romantic musing, this time over lost love and the search for self in its aftermath.
Milky Way sees Dave Huber take back over on the main vocal duty in a reflective take on the underappreciated state of the world, and seeing the beauty in the ordinary, and he then continues vocally on the most up-tempo track on the album, the rollicking Sweet World Blues. Matters draw to a conclusion with the quietly anthemic The Night Has Come. It’s a lighters-in-the-air set closer and, as such, is a tidy end to what is an honest, heartfelt set of working-class roots tunes.
