Our latest Short Cuts, a monthly feature where AUK casts a brief eye and ear on several albums we’ve received recently, which just didn’t make the cut for a full review. Like most major music websites, we can’t mention every album or EP we get sent, but we reckon the picks below deserve a nod. Click on the links to hear a song.
Sam Bergquist, a veteran of Boston’s music scene kicks off this month’s selection of short cuts with his second album, Devils & Doves. A snappy songwriter who wallows around in the folk and blues idiom Bergquist delivers an engaging and enjoyable album with a couple of the songs reminiscent of the likes of Steve Forbert. It’s not groundbreaking stuff but there’s no denying the pleasure to be had from listening to the opening song, Envy Blues, a sharp and humorous number while The Rifle And The Dove employs some nasty sounding slide guitar and Landfill has a fine ecological message in its lyrics.
Staying with veterans we have a bunch of Omaha musicians who have struck out under the name Lightning Stills (including stray Birds fiddler Oliver Bates Craven). Led by songwriter Craig Fort they create a very fine country rock vibe on their self titled debut which is replete with swirling pedal steel, twangy guitars and fiddle galore with the best example being the tongue in cheek He’s Not Heavy, He’s My Dealer. Bars and the demon drink feature on several of the songs with Drunker Than Me a classic tears in the beer number while I Closed The Bar is an appropriate closing number. With tight band playing and a fine sense of enjoyment throughout the album this is well worth checking out and one gets the impression that they would be a hoot to see live.
Third veteran of the month is James Deely who cut his teeth in New Jersey before relocating to Florida and then Los Angeles. His latest outing is The Nashville Sessions which employs the talents of some esteemed musicians including Gary Tallent and Eric “Roscoe” Ambel and overall it’s a sturdy collection of rootsy rock numbers with a Springsteen like touch. He springs out of the traps with the opening Try My Luck, a song stained with years of experience and quite excellent while Custom Made is a fine example of America’s love of the automobile with some fine slide guitar stoking the engine. Running Back ’56 is a grand exercise in early rock’n’roll with Deely sounding as if he was in the Sun Studios back in the days bit while Even Cowgirls Get The Blues finds him in a Waylon Jennings like mood.
Dana Robinson hails from New England and The Sound Of The Word is his 14th album. It’s a fairly pleasant collection of ruralised songs, some of which have an ecological bent to them such The Farmer is the Man That Feeds Us All and Without Changing Our Ways but in the main it fails to stand out with only Stepping Stone being somewhat memorable. He does get kudos for including his version of a Michael Hurley number, Hog Of The Forsaken.
CJ Land was buffeted by the Covid pandemic, having to close his studio set up in California due to the restrictions. Once he could he set out on the road and eventually landed in Nashville where he recorded Storm Chaser, a wiry affair of barbed guitar and gutsy songs. He lays out his journey on the swampy Where has All The Time Gone while the title track, despite some bluster, is an energetic slice of rock’n’roll. He can wind it back as on the yearning pathos of I Need Some Time, a regret fuelled ballad which has some soulful organ playing and some swell pedal steel licks.
Talking of pedal steel, the almost ubiquitous Joe Harvey Whyte has teamed up with fellow steel player, Norwegian Geir Sundstøl, the pair collaborating in Sundstøl’s studio to release their joint effort Langeleik. Utilising the array of exotic instruments on hand they have come up with one of the more intoxicating ambient Americana albums so far. Most of the tunes are named after rivers that both have encountered on their travels, the fluid depth of the waters an abstraction they have attempted to capture. Ribbles in particular stands out due to its serenity and on the one occasion where Sundstøl recites some Norwegian poetry on Rørvikelva the result is just so, so calming. As Harvey-Whyte says, “This is not an album of instant gratification – it’s an album to do nothing with. A companion for reverie.”
Canadian Suzanne Jarvie received many accolades for her debut album Spiral Road back in 2014 and it’s likely that mother’s day (no capitals), her third release, will be similarly acclaimed. It’s quite splendid at times, her piano led songs reminiscent of Joni Mitchell as Jarvie delves into the heart and soul of human emotions although it has to be said that the opening track honeycomb (again, no capitols as with all of the songs here) has something of the grandeur of prime Jackson Browne. Jarvie sails elegantly and eloquently throughout the album, threading a piano motif from Frere Jacques into caterpillar, drinking away her sorrows on 40% or exploring the depths of grief on the wonderfully melancholic Nicole. Highly recommended.
Inheritance Songs, the debut album from Celina Siva, is another album which explores grief and loss, in this instance her grandfather’s death and the impact of the pandemic. Siva’s vocals, pleasant and airy, float over the fine arrangements on show with Lungs and Limbs, an ethereal exploration of dreaming, recalling Alela Diane’s earlier songs while Shape Of You, a song about her bereavement, is a delicate and moving collection of her memories. Inheritance is specifically the subject of the closing number Sibylle where Siva runs through an inventory of her ailing grandmother’s prized possessions and the memories they evoke. Overall a moving tribute.
Heading back to Canada we have Jody Peck’s Wild Northern Way, a twangy collection of country songs which is compared in the publicity notes to Patsy Cline and kd Lang. Peck can stoke the fire on the smouldering Cook Shack (she’s apparently an award winning chef) and the opening Alaska Highway, a hi octane road trip of a song. She covers Cline’s Leavin’ On Your Mind quite respectfully, her voice perfectly suited to the torch ballad element of the song and she delivers a couple of her own ballad like numbers including Something Is Happening Here and Break Your Heart, although the latter is a bit too power ballad as it builds to a crescendo. However Peck seems more at home on the rootin’ tootin’ songs such as Boom Town and Guns And Knives with her band kicking up some hot licks.
We close with a banger as the appropriately named Dash Rip Rock romp through a set of punk infused rockers on A Song In Everything. A trio who started out in the cowpunk days, they remain close their roots here with the album produced by Drive By Truckers’ Bobby Matt Patton. They whip it up on the frantic Hell And Back and deliver a thumping great slice of Neil Young like grunge on Pain Pills Never Expire, a song which includes this excellent Young inspired lyric, “The king is gone but he’s not forgotten/This is the story of Oxycontin.” While their cover of The Beatles Mean Mr. Mustard might be a slight diversion the band deliver several other fine guitar fuelled numbers such as the melodic Shakin’ Out The Days and the grand put down which is I Don’t Want To Be A Whore. Another recommended album.
