Andrew Leahey & The Homestead Kick / Move / Shake Andrew Leahey & The Homestead are back with a follow-up to American Static. On Kick / Move / Shake, Leahey and the band touch a sparkler / sparkle / sparkplug. First, in the technical delights of intricate pop arranging. Then, in his sensitivity to the […]
Joshua Hedley All Hat Joshua Hedley’s latest album begins with either confession or charge. On the title track, he calls out, “All hat.” The chorus responds, “No cattle.” And Hedley answers resolutely, “And that’s alright with me,” it’s a relief. Across his output, Joshua Hedley has been caught up in that oft-troublesome and cold conflict […]
Continue Reading
Ruen Brothers Awooo The Ruen Brothers are Rupert and Henry Stansall of Scunthorpe, and now settled in Louisville. On their fourth album Awooo, the brothers have created a sparse and sparing world. To share it, here’s what you need: Two speakers. A lonely room. Nighttime, preferably with a hint of cold. Approximately thirty-three minutes. And […]
Continue Reading
Malin Pettersen Wildflower Wildflowers, it turns out, are funny things. Most would say they’re bound to a region. But must they be native? Or can they have been introduced? It’s the way the defining feature signals the absence of human intervention. And yet, there’s a packet of seed from the dollar store labeled wildflowers on […]
Continue Reading
Thank the Lord . . . It’s the Pink Stones is all the title you need With eleven songs branded on the cover as “new country standards,” this is a daring collection from the band out of Athens, Georgia. Its shortest track runs for four minutes and forty-eight seconds, which is the kind of thing […]
Continue Reading
Pete Droge Fade Away Blue In his first solo LP since 2006’s Under the Waves, Pete Droge simmers on Fade Away Blue. This album is sixteen years in the making, if not a lifetime. It holds the stories and the dreams and the feelings that unraveled when Droge set out to find his birth mother. […]
Continue Reading
Ketch Secor Story The Crow Told Me Amidst a storied career as the leader of Old Crow Medicine Show, Ketch Secor steps out for his first solo release in Story The Crow Told Me. But he does not stand by his lonesome. Secor has been joined again by Willie Watson, Critter Fuqua, Molly Tuttle, Morgan […]
Continue Reading
Jackson Emmer Hymn of the Early Riser Jackson Emmer is a “tired dad.” These are his words, not mine. And his latest album Battle Hymn of the Early Riser meets a moment that threatens to tire us all out. For his fifth full-length album Emmer called on Abigayle Oakley, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Nashville, to […]
Continue Reading
Murder By Death Egg & Dart On Egg & Dart, Murder by Death says good-bye after twenty-five years. As their farewell tour gets off the ground, the band from Bloomington by way of Louisville will release their eleventh studio album. It is a rhinestone shining darkly as Adam Turla and Sarah Balliet, who have been […]
Continue Reading
Willi Carlisle Winged Victory With reverence and revulsion, Willi Carlisle’s Winged Victory moves to revelry It takes a certain kind of wondering to start a record with a union hymn and end it with a cowboy song passed on from the penman himself. In a traditional sense, Carlisle wanders, extending the archive of American music. […]
Continue Reading