Peter Oren - The Greener Pasture

New album from singer-songwriter Peter Oren out 24th April from Western Vinyl

FFO: Eerie Gaits, Bon Iver, Rayland Baxter, Bob Mould

His first new release since 2017's Anthropocene, Oren has recorded this album himself in his hometown of Nashville, Indiana. This is the first project he has mixed, mastered and produced himself and recorded mostly in seclusion at a cabin near his hometown surrounded by hilly and wooded acres totally 60.

The album involved him trading files with fellow musicians some he has never met in person, yet he has produced an album that is at both times about connecting in this large world, and in these unsettling times of pandemic that theme of unity and togetherness is even more telling.

Highly rooted in the history of Americana roots, blues and country and western, while it is indebted to that rich history of American musical genres, Oren is writing about prevelant first world problems so not tales of backwater gangs but as in 'Ones and Ohs' it is about excessive phone usage and becoming a slave to this modern technology at your fingertips.

'Fun Yet' (track 6 on the album) concerns the need to have fun despite all the ability at those same fingerprints. 'John Wayne' is about the search for heroes and icons in these times of trouble. So this album is as much about looking forwards as looking back in its stripped down woozy wonderfulness.

Opening single 'Gnawed to The Bone (Come By)' is about feeling isolation understandable when recording in isolation and the theme coming through the album is about Oren combating this period of isolation and having to overcome those fears of vulnerability and gain a voice amongst the chaos and loneliness.

That first single was released on 19th February, here we are two months later and the world is very much different to then. We are all coming together in periods of reflection and contemplation, and it is works like this that will help us do this - becoming a voice for the people who themselves are seeking answers amongst this weird dystopia we find ourselves living in.

The Greener Pasture is a rich work of individualism for the people, it is out on all platforms from 24th April from Western Vinyl.

Other Lives - For Their Love

The long awaited album from Oregon band, Other Lives, is out from Play It Again Sam Recordings.

A band that has a richness of sound and unity in their performance, and a timeless nature to the compositions as if they are songs pulled from the collective consciousness with a universal appeal and general freedom in their sound.

This comes from the overlong hiatus the band have subjected themselves to since the 2011 debut Tamer Animals and out of creative uncertainty the band have re-emerged in a personal necessity and it is a joyful rebirth we witness on For Their Love.

The album starts off slowly, admittedly, but slowly the band creates this aura of Americana with great ear worm songs such as 'Lost Day' which epitomises the ear that the band has for swooning melody coupled with mystical lyrics and lush harmonies stemming from the band as a unit but also where the album was recorded in the Oregon mountains as featured in the video above.

The songs evoke visions of this great lost American soundtrack to an indie film from Jim Jarmusch or John Sayles ('Cops'), images of road trips on lost highways ('For Their Love'), landscapes blowing in the ever changing environment which harkens back to this genuinely organic feel of the album layout.

This is the sort of album that will be great to listen to in most environments, from a festival backdrop to garden barbecues to listening parties. Hopefully in spite of the current climate, this album will find a willing and deserving audience for this swooning soundtrack to Americana by way of Stillwater, Oklahoma.

For Their Love is our on 24th April on all platforms

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

Michigan Rattlers 'Evergreen'

On the first anniversary of Tom Petty's untimely passing, I was pointed via social media to a debut album by the Michigan Rattlers entitled Evergreen.

This is an album that bursts out with the legacy and influence of Americana streaming through its veins; it is in touch with the land, the people who sow the land and those who have laid claim to it. Even more prevalent is that it comes out during the season of harvest, a record that is in touch with the fabric of the American landscape that is devoid of political ideology during this highly charged political contextualised period.

While a lot of records in recent months have attempted to make sense of the mess their country is in by way of the leaders they have elected, this band, albeit one relocated to a base of Los Angeles has not lost touch with its roots - featuring nods to bluegrass ('The Heat'), country ('Sirens') and original rhythm and blues.

Evergreen is an album eager to pay homage to famous musicians, it tells stories about being in love, about falling in love, the difficulty of love, wanting to tell that person that you are in love with them despite it all. You need only look at the chorus to 'Sweet Diane'

'I'll buy you y'all a beer if you want a drink.

And I'll take you anywhere you want to go.

You ain't got to call me by my name if you don't want to,

Just open up the door and we'll hit the road.'

In the same song is the little nugget, 'I think I saw you smile once tonight', this has the air of being in a roadside bar and having a moment that sticks with you forever.

The band consist of a trio which started as a duo when Graham Young (guitar) and Adam Reed (upright bass) where friends in Michigan who played together and worked bars sharing vocal duties. They created a self-titled EP which launched last year, and they added pianist Christian Wilder to give the additional honky tonk feel to the musicianship.

There is an aged humility to the compositional songwriting perhaps due to the shared upbringing of the original pairing, but there is an admiration for the love of music.

Songs do not overstay their welcome, instead they remind you of old friends who have come back to visit leaving you with a knowing smile of days gone by. Perhaps a reminder of halcyon days yes but the fondness of the past never dwindles.

Evergreen is out now on all available streaming platforms.

My thanks to Christopher Porter of Pulp, a Michigan based website for the recommendation.

American Band

American Band, is the 11th studio album by one of the best and still unheralded bands in America, Drive-By Truckers.

Consisting of a five piece with duelling compositions by Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood; the band is one of those spit and sawdust bands you imagine exist in every bar in the Southern states of America. And yet the older they have got as a band, the better they have become as a unit but also as a voice of the disillusioned masses.

The bands writing has consistently had a great sense of story and narrative, one of this reviewer's favourite albums of the 21st century remains Brighter Than Creation's Dark, which consisted of such fables as 'Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife', 'Three Dimes Down' and 'Monument Valley'.

When Drive-By Truckers released their first single of the album 'Surrender Under Protest', the point was made by Patterson Hood in a statement:  

"These are crazy times and we have made a record steeped in this moment of history that we're all trying to live through. We've always considered ourselves a political band, even when that aspect seemed to be concealed by some type of narrative device i.e. dealing with issues of race by telling a story set in the time of George Wallace or class struggles by setting "Putting People of the Moon" in the age of Reagan.

This time out, there are no such diversions as these songs are mostly set front and center in the current political arena with songs dealing with our racial and cultural divisions, gun violence, mass shootings and political assholery. Once again, there is a nearly even split between the songs of Cooley and myself, with both of us bringing in songs that seem to almost imply a conversation between us about our current place in time."

The band are celebrating their 20th anniversary with the release of this album, and it can be interpreted that the album is a call to arms about the way the world is but also a sense of America coming to terms with not being the biggest noise in the room anymore, a realisation that the country's time is passing with the possible calamity of a Donald Trump presidency mere months away.

The album has the usual bombast and rock and roll guitars from the opening riffs of 'Ramon Casiano', but there is more subdued tone in the lyrics from the lead single of 'Surrender Under Protest' to the wrenching 'Guns of Umpqua' to the reflective 'Once They Banned Imagine'

Cooley and Hood's vocals are great to hear as they mix maturity with the ever optimistic streak throughout their oral history, yet there is still that sense of a moment passing by and of America changing in this current political climate.

'I might get better when the sun don't shine,

Much rather watch the clouds go by'
- 'When the Sun Don't Shine'

The album is a must for all Americana fans and those who love the sound of riffing guitars be it from Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen; this album packs a direct punch and will get your toes tapping quicker than a line dancing contest.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
AMERICAN BAND TRACKLISTING:

1)      Ramon Casiano
2)      Darkened Flags on the Cusp of Dawn
3)      Surrender Under Protest
4)      Guns of Umpqua
5)      Filthy and Fried
6)      When the Sun Don’t Shine
7)      Kinky Hypocrites
8)      Ever South
9)      What It Means
10)    Once They Banned Imagine
11)    Baggage

American Band by Drive-By Truckers is released by ATO Records on 30th September 2016

Catch the band on tour
Follow them on Twitter @drivebytruckers