1/11/2024 0 Comments Slow blues backing trackThe tune is pretty instant to stick, mind, proving the old less is more adage, it becoming a favourite, and one I can hear them closing their sets with. I’ll Be Yours seems a slighter effort, but with lyrics that can’t be argued with, around supporting the underdog. As you might expect, the bass, from Tom Andersen, is mighty on this one. Without one, that is, as it is the other instruments that “play” the drums on this quirky instrumental. And if you ever wondered whether bluegrass musicians ever trouble to think about drummers and/or their absence, catch Bim Batta, which endeavours to address the absence. These guys are good, and warrant filing up there alongside the Infamous Stringdusters, Leftover Salmon and more. Another back porch vocal is just so darn comfy, with a first taste of that effortless guitar picking, Zac Archuleta, that seems bred into mountain boys.Ĭoldiron, which while occupying a more sombre subject, is all runaway train in rhythm, the band again excelling in the swaying cadence their interplay provides. First Night Of The Tour is then a road song many of them are, that being where the band spare more time than not, and with the line “ Everybody knows that you don’t get drunk the very first night on the road“, one senses it a lesson learnt from experience. Yes, it upcanters midway, but without too much sweat and it all builds together, the banjo, by Adam Collins, mirroring the mandolin as it draws to a close. Followed by the first of several instrumentals, Big City Chicken, it eschews the rule all bluegrass must be helter skelter, instead a mellow and reflectful melody, which does indeed mimic the bird in question. Ethan Bush, the mandolinist wrote it and possibly sang it, vocal credits far from clear. A song about a wild night out, it morphs into a reflection on relationships. Up On The Shelf is an instant toe-tapper that has a holler creep unselfconsciously into any listener’s throat, the banjo and mandolin running rings around each other, over a solid bottom line acoustic choogle. It is with flickering mandolin that this disc opens, the vocal all very reminiscent of Ray Dorset, the extravagantly sideburned face of Mungo Jerry, that actually not such a bad reference, if with more moonshine. If the name weren’t already taken, these daredevils from the Ozark Mountains could have had themselves a different name, but the hot sauce aromatics of the one chosen will do just as well. Their deal gone down is one of contemporary songs, their own, indelibly stained in hillbilly dew and pumped out proud, banjos and mandolins to the fore, guitar and bass to keep it level. Not that I am complaining, with now, this further new to me quartet, breaking international cover for this, album number five. The jamband bluegrass field is on a bit of a gusher, it feels, there seeming a rich and never-ending seam deep in the hills of rural America.
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