Folk-tinged harmonies and sophisticated indie-pop for turbulent times.
Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson are originally from Knoxville, Tennessee – together they make up The Montvales. During their middle school years, the duo started out by busking in the Market Square of this liberal southern community. Gentrification of their hometown and rising costs prompted a move to Cincinnati, a base from which they have embarked upon many tours of the eastern and southern states, absorbing ideas, characters and stories as they go.
Path of Totality is the third album from The Montvales, and it’s a significant departure from their first recordings made in a living room for their 2020 début, Heartbreak Summer Camp. Influenced by their extensive travels on the road and underpinned by their strong political convictions, the new songs reflect upon the American diaspora and the turmoil into which the country has been thrown. Rochelson wrote the opening track, World Of Trouble, prior to a gig in Galveston. As she describes it, “We were about to play the Old Quarter, and I thought about Townes and Guy Clark and what it meant to be in this role of traveling stranger and cultural witness during such catastrophic times.”
As on their second album, Born Strangers from 2024, The Montvales have again used Mike Eli LoPinto as producer. A member of Chris Stapleton’s tour band, he has again brought in several musicians to complement the vocal harmonies and accomplished banjo of Sally Buice and the acoustic guitar of Molly Rochelson, if anything, expanding the production values found on the previous record. The result is a rich and satisfying blend of folk and country with indie-pop overtones.
Fortunately for The Montvales, their relationship is a long-standing and close one, with the two living in neighbouring streets and able to draw upon an almost telepathic understanding. All twelve songs were written by one or other of the pair and in three cases by both together. These three draw upon shared convictions and experiences, such as the total eclipse they encountered on a drive from Pittsburgh to Texas and from which the album takes its title. Elsewhere, the experience may be more personal, as in Hellbent On Colorado, written about the time in 2020 when Buice spontaneously took off in an ancient Toyota and spent months working on a ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
The Montvales have brought many colourful characters and stories to the songs in this collection, but the unifying theme is principally that of survival in turbulent times.
