Roberta Faceplant Brisket & Cigarettes Self Release
The latest EP from Philadelphia’s cowgirl, Roberta Faceplant, showcases her honky tonk credentials, her strong vocals, her songwriting and, above all, her sense of fun. Recorded in Philly’s Cambridge Sound Studio with her own band, it is a six-track country rock riot.
Big Dark Town opens proceedings. Written by bass player Nick Anastasi, it’s the darkest song inclusion here, its broody and clanging guitar-driven palette suitably accompanying the tale of the seedy underbelly of every town, where drug dealers weigh out the demon drugs for the addicts who are 'drowning in their scars’. The title track introduces the food theme underlying the whole record, suitably illustrated by Nick Anastasi’s sleeve design, an amusing homage to cold meat packaging. Brisket & Cigarettes is a manic retelling of a hunger fuelled car chase, where Katie panics that she won’t make that night’s show. Her pet lizard, who is ‘a brother, much more than a pet/ got left behind in that roadhouse’ and that story is relayed in much more detail in the hilarious Lizard in a Bar. The country flavoured spoken intro introduces us to all the items that one can bring into a bar (from head phones to hats and scarves) and all the behaviours tolerated (from throwing darts to throwing punches) but the innocent lizard is still barred!
Mykk Hoffman’s country lead guitar playing gets to showcase in Eat Em, where Roberta tries to hold back from eating the sausages she's cooking. In A Can ups the tempo with Beachboy influenced harmonies, while Roberta plans how to 'make a gazillion' by ‘putting you in an airtight container’, 'if they sold you in jars/you would go far’. The closing song Bottle It Smash It is a more serious piano led ballad (keys by Frankie Padano), an exhortation to ‘drink it while you got it’ because 'good times don’t last’.
This is an excellent calling card for an act who can be enjoyed playing live in the Philadelphia area and further afield. Catch ‘em if you can.
Eilís Boland
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter Forever, I've Been Being Born Ideologic Organ/Southern Lord
It's been a journey of evolution and growth for Jesse Sykes and her musical partner Phil Wandscher. Fourteen years since the release of their last album, MARBLE SON, they now make a welcome return with their fifth studio album. Their relationship, which began in Seattle, Washington, in 1999, led to the formation of The Sweet Hereafter and the release of their acclaimed debut record, RECKLESS BURNING, in 2003. OH, MY GIRL followed a year later to hugely positive reviews, and was followed by LIKE, LOVE, LUST AND THE OPEN HALLS OF THE SOUL in 2007.
Having written and recorded the material for this latest album several years ago, the release was delayed primarily because two band members, essentially the band’s rhythm section, left after MARBLE SON was released, splitting the band that had become akin to a family unit. Although written before COVID-19 and the current political environment, much of the writing on the new album, as if prophesied, addresses trauma and dislocation. While sonically somewhat less muscular than its predecessors, it retains the core otherworldly and enthralling attributes that make the Sykes and Wandscher partnership so unique.
Mortality has often been visited in Sykes’ writing, and the title track in this record explores the crossing from death to an afterlife (‘It’s to this that I will surrender. Forever I’ve been born’). It’s beautifully articulated by Sykes's crystal-clear pronunciation and supported by whirling guitars, lap steel, and strings, with Marissa Nadler adding backing vocals. Following a similar thread, Gentle Chaperone, with its aura of oblivion and limbo, could be the next stage in the journey spoken of in the title track (‘This is where I stay, but this is not my home’). A spine-chilling affair, A New Medium drifts from a gripping acoustic opening before Wandscher’s guitars and organ explode spectacularly mid-song. The name ‘Lorelie’ is taken from a river rock in Germany where sailors were coaxed to their deaths by a mythical siren, and the melancholy, haunting I Still Hear Lorelie expresses irresistible, and often deadly temptation, regardless of the likely consequences.
Sykes and Wandscher have both been active with other projects in recent years, Sykes as lead vocalist in Dave Alvin’s band, The Third Mind, while Wandscher has been working with Marissa Nadler and Jon Langford of late. However, the re-emergence of their partnership in Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter, is celebrated with this striking album that sits comfortably alongside their powerful back catalogue.
‘What’s left my Sweet Hereafter? I’m coming home to you,’ Wandscher announces in the lyrics of My Sweet Hereafter, a song which features only his vocals and guitar. Hopefully, it’s a declaration that the reincarnation of this unrivalled gothic-folk partnership, which is essentially in their DNA, continues to flourish.
Declan Culliton
Courtney Hartman With You Reckoner
A member of bluegrass band Della Mae for nearly a decade prior to launching her solo career, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter Courtney Hartman has collaborated with Anaïs Mitchell, Gregory Alan Isakov, and Sam Amidon in the past. Her latest project follows that trend of working closely with like-minded artists.
Very much a triumph over near tragedy, Colorado-born Hartman’s latest record seemed unlikely to see the light of day amid a series of life challenges. While rebuilding their house in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Hartman and her husband learned that Courtney was pregnant with their first child. That joyous realisation was followed by misfortune when her husband fell off a ladder, leaving him unable to work for several months. Further misery followed when Hartman was dropped by her booking agent and lost their family car in an accident. Rather than finance what was to be her fourth album, the money saved to record the album was used to survive that difficult period. However, instead of being smothered by their predicament, Hartman began writing material reflecting on both her physical and emotional condition.
Continuing in that vein, WITH YOU became a ‘motherhood’ album, navigating across the pregnancy experience, the joys of birth, and the bouts of post-natal depression which followed. This exploration then drew Hartman’s attention to the difficulties other mothers face in balancing the demands of a creative career with the responsibilities of childcare. As a result, she connected with several other women in similar circumstances, leading to co-writes with Dawn Landes, Tift Merritt, Sarah Siskind, Ana Egge, Kristin Andreassen, and Emily Franz Marlin of the husband-and-wife duo Watchhouse.
The album opens and closes with the same song, divided into two parts. The former, titled Softening, visits both the defencelessness and tenderness experienced in the early stages of pregnancy. On reflection, it was decided to split the song into two, resulting in the closer, Softening Again. Both are lo-fi dreamlike affairs with Hartman's vocals surrounded by drifting synths. That calming sonic soundscape is repeated in the Ana Egge co-write, Bright Eye, the nickname Hartman gave her daughter.
Everything At Once, co-written with Sarah Siskind, who gave birth the same week as Hartman, traverses the full gamut of emotions accompanying motherhood (‘I want to be held, I want to run, I want to be holding someone’). Like A Woman, also co-written with Siskind, addresses the often-overlooked need for emotional support after childbirth (‘No one needs mothering like a woman in the summer days of mothering. No one needs covering like a woman on the journey, discovering’) and is complemented by the enduring love for the child in Inside Outside.
Given its theme, WITH YOU could have resulted in an overly self-indulgent affair. Instead, Hartman has created something quite lovely here. With contributions from her friends and peers, her heartfelt lyrics and evocative vocals are underpinned by musicianship that maintains a consistent, intimate ambience throughout.
Declan Culliton
Drive By Truckers The Definitive Decoration Day New West
“Considered by many (including me) to be DBT’s masterpiece, this is the ultimate version of Decoration Day, sounding better than ever,” declares Patterson Hood on the remixed fifteen-track album originally released in 2003. The package also includes the previously unreleased double album HEATHENS LIVE AT FLICKER BAR, ATHENS, GEORGIA, JUNE 20th, 2002, and a forty-page full-colour booklet.
SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA, the band's third album, had been released two years earlier than DECORATION DAY, having been funded by fans and family. A mammoth twenty-track project that ran for over one and a half hours, it generated a degree of positive media attention and saved the band (formed in Athens, Georgia, by longtime friends Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley in 1996) from throwing in the towel. The band members at that time were Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, Earl Hicks, Brad Morgan, and Rob Malone. When Malone departed, leaving a gap for a guitarist, Jason Isbell entered. Invited by Patterson from the audience to perform with the band at an unofficial gig, and despite being half Hood and Cooley’s age, Isbell was in the tour van the following day.
Despite his young age, Isbell’s songwriting impressed to the extent that two of his songs, Outfit and Decoration Day, made the final cut on the album, the latter replacing what was to be the record’s title. Recognising the band’s potential, Lost Highway signed them but, when presented with a fifteen-song track listing for DECORATION DAY, insisted it be whittled down to ten and wanted all of Mike Cooley’s songs to be removed. Outraged by the prospect, the band bought the album back from the Lost Highway and found themselves once more without a label.
New West, one of several interested labels, came on board, and the album was released in the format the band presented. The material was written at a time when Hood and Colley’s marriages were falling apart, apparently because they put the band ahead of family life. The writing on the album reflected that grim period and served as an examination and commentary on the darker side, emotional wreckage, and the undercurrent of real Southern life. Hood and Cooley’s writing tackled issues head on and included relationship breakdown (Sounds Better In The Song, Something’s Got To Give Pretty Soon, Your Daddy Hates Me), incest (The Deeper In), a jilted bride (My Sweet Annette), farm repossession (Deep Hole), and suicide (Do It Yourself, When The Pin Hits The Shell). Although only two of his compositions were included, the influence of the new kid on the block, Isbell, was immense. Outfit’s slant was one of leaving the nest and surviving in the big, bad world, advice Isbell was to ignore, as he followed the other members' hedonistic lifestyle during his six-year tenure in the band. Decoration Day was a classic depiction of a brutal, long-standing family feud that Isbell had heard from relatives, and it was, deservedly, selected as the album’s title.
Propelling the band to the frontline of alt-country bands in America and Europe and away from their previous Southern rock façade, both Drive By Truckers and Jason Isbell went on to record several masterful albums, but, arguably, DECORATION DAY was their finest undertaking.
HEATHENS LIVE AT FLICKER BAR, ATHENS, GEORGIA was recorded a year before DECORATION DAY was to be released. A late-night session at the small local bar in their hometown, the essentially acoustic set (bass player Earl Hicks was the only one amped up) included many of the tracks from the upcoming album performed for the first time. Even in the stripped-back format, the energy of the recorded songs isn’t lost, and although the band would confess to being worn out from touring and, like most of the audience, ‘drunk as skunks’, the playing and vocals are impressive.
An essential purchase for Drive By Truckers’ fans and a reminder, if needed, of the most stellar lineup and creative writing of the band’s three-decade existence.
Declan Culliton
Kimmie Rhodes West Texas Heaven Revisited Sunbird
This is a very welcome re-release of an album whose timeless quality has remained intact over the years since its original debut back in 1996. Twenty nine years later and the original twelve songs still maintain a warm reflection on what life was like for an aspiring young talent, with Kimmie’s sweetly gentle vocal so prominent in the production.
The arrival on the music scene of this new talent was given real gravitas by the appearance of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Joe Ely and Townes Van Zandt on the recording. As a veritable who’s-who of Texan music legends, Kimmie could not have happened upon a more influential quartet to announce her arrival.
This remixed and remastered album includes six additional tracks, three new songs and three out-takes, together with the twelve original creations that still stand up so well here. The duets with Willie Nelson on Hard Promises To Keep and I Never Heard You Say both lament lost love and are performed with an elegance and rueful reflection. Two more tracks, Maybe We’ll Just Disappear and Be Mine are sung with Waylon Jennings and celebrate the love shared between two people to great effect. There is a sense that the genuine respect between the musicians at the time made everything sound even more real in the delivery.
The impressive I’m Gonna Fly really hits the spot and the co-vocal with Townes Van Zandt pulls on the heartstrings, as both singers dove tail together on a song of longing and wishes unfilled. There is a wide musical palette that includes the French lyrics and waltz-time of Les Roses Sauvages, the mandolin giving a stylised impression of cosmopolitan Europe in earlier times. Corner Of the Bar is a song of regret and includes a sample melody from the classic La Vie en Rose, with accordion and acoustic guitar echoing the lonely lyric, partly sung in French.
The light jazzy arrangement on Home John is a fine example of the versatility of Kimmie Rhodes, the piano and electric guitar in unison as she sings of getting back on familiar ground. My personal favourites are the cool blues groove on Just To Be Near You and the equally impressive Git You A Job, with atmospheric playing, including superb harmonica and guitar combinations, really shining.
Of the new songs, I’m Not An Angel is memorable, a promise to be true, despite a dark past. The superb Send Me the Sun has Kimmie performing alongside Emmylou Harris and Beth Nielsen Chapman on co-vocals on a song about true love. Another song Lines is a reflection on a life lived and the wisdom gained that often shape the song content that Kimmie writes. ‘I live on the outskirts of the back of my mind.’ It’s also poignant to hear the superb playing of Joe Gracey who provided bass and rhythm guitar to many of Kimmie’s recordings, together with Jack “Cowboy” Clement. Kimmie was married to Joe Gracey for twenty-eight years before his untimely death in 2011.
Other players on the songs include David Zettner, Mike Maddux and Mickey Raphael, in addition to her son Gabe Rhodes adding some nice lead guitar parts. It all works superbly well and the album is a timely reminder of all that attracted folks to the original Outlaw Country movement. Kimmie continues to record, and in 2024 she released HYPNOTISED, an album produced by her son Gabe and one which continues her impressive creative output.
Paul McGee
Stephen Simmons Hunch Self Release
I have always thought of Stephen Simmons as the quintessential example of Heartland Roots music that has endured over the decades, since it became fused with the Alternative Country music movement of the 1990s. Simmons took to the highways back in the early years of the Gen Z generation when his debut album LAST CALL (2004) was getting very positive media reaction. Ever since, he has been capturing stories from the road and impressions derived from his globe trotting in the chase of his eternal muse.
There are any number of guitar slingers out there who label themselves as road warriors in the never-ending pursuit of nightly confirmation of their talents. As Simmons sings on Amsterdam ‘Nobody ever had a dream that didn’t cost them anything, nothing’s free.’ On the ten songs included here there is nothing that wouldn’t sit easily alongside anything that say, Springsteen, might deduce from looking at this crazy world that we all share. It’s album number twelve in the continuing journey of Stephen Simmons and it’s a real beauty.
The album was recorded in Tennessee by Goffrey Moore and the relaxed production delivers plenty of room for these songs to breathe. The title track Hunch imagines a country boy who just wants to break out and become a musician. No factory or farm work when you can take an amplifier and a guitar to make some sweet noise.
Decoration Days is right out of the Tom Petty songbook with melodic guitar hooks and a memory of days now past. On Song Of Us we are given a failed relationship in all its compromise and hurt ‘Running in place and running on hope, Running behind, and running out of rope.’ Country influenced Grandpa’s Jacket is a song about moving on but always being tethered to the past, and with Early Rising Moon the pedal steel plays a lazy melody on a song that professes a deeper love. The story song Dresden Doll captures a lonely night in Europe, and chasing down a feeling that may just be something of a dangerous desire ‘One night is all it takes to fall, For a Dresden doll.’
With Amsterdam we find the weary traveller in a rented car and feeling alone. Ten years of touring and wrestling with the demons you are running from, can there ever be any joy to be found ‘You can’t learn without being wrong, Like a singer that ain’t ever lived his song.’ The slow tempo is right along the lines of a Springsteen reflection on a blue funk. To balance the dark mood we then get Tomorrow Is Another Day and the optimism ‘We may never be here again, So I try to be in the moment and take it all in.’ Such a better life philosophy.
Boy Before the Man is a look at the path taken in the development of adulthood and maturity. You cannot rush the journey ‘You won’t know ‘till it’s over, what it was about all along.’ You can’t go back in time and help the boy before he becomes a man … sage advice from the pen of Simmons.
Someone Like You is the final song and it’s an attempt to reach out to a loved one in order to find connection ‘I’m not going to play forever, these little songs will leave me too, the only melody that is eternal is a song shared with someone like you.’ A nice sentiment to end on and confirmation that at the end of it all, the only important message to take is one of connection, to our inner selves and to each other.
Paul McGee
Nathan McEuen My One and Only Mesa/Bluemoon
This five-song EP is a taster for the talents displayed by Nathan McEuen, the son of John McEuen (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band). Nathan has been steeped in music from an early age, and he has released a number of previous recordings, from 2005 through 2014.
The songs here are all firmly based in the Americana stable and the loving sentiment of the title track My One and Only is certainly destined to become a popular wedding song in the years to come. Equally, on the song Lately we are given a sweet melody and a celebration of shared love in the words ‘Through the endless sea of city lights, Yours is the only one that shines.’
Up To No Good changes things up a little on a song about trouble coming to call and the consequences of experiencing dangerous situations. The tempo is very much an acoustic blues with the ensemble interacting nicely, McEuen (guitar, vocals), Jimmy Calire (piano), Steve Nelson (upright bass), Mario Calre (drums), and Jesse Siebenberg (slide guitar), teasing the melody. The deeper groove on Sticks and Stones is a highlight with nice B-3 organ and both electric and slide guitar parts fuelling a song about staying strong amid all the challenges that life imposes.
The final track is Beautiful Night and returns to matters of love with a Bossa nova rhythm, aided by strings, mandolin, piano, hypnotic percussion and sultry gypsy violin. Very assured and engaging, with hopes for more to follow from the creative talents of Nathan McEuen.
Paul McGee
Sister Speak Coming Home Reso Nation
This is the fifth release from Canadian artist Sherri Anne Nyberg who performs under the stage name of Sister Speak. Previous releases included two studio albums, a live recording, and an EP. This new music is also released as an EP and it has five songs, running over fourteen minutes, with the arrangements mainly acoustic-based.
Coming Home expresses the urge to return to your roots and losing yourself in dreams of mountains and starlit skies. Home is in British Columbia for Nyberg and the acoustic guitar strums a nice melody to accompany the understated piano.
We Can Rise follows, with a slow rhythm and electric guitar backed by bass, on a song about taking stock and taking action to protest against the ongoing differences that repeatedly separate our wish for peace. Anger and pride fuelling the actions that keep people apart ‘Have we forgotten all the visions that we can make come true?.’
I’ll Find Peace is a song that looks for a way to resolve internal conflict and bring contentment to a troubled mind. The war here is a battle fought within. Another song Oh Sunshine is performed acapella, with communal hand-claps, asking for the sun to reveal itself and bring some restorative healing to the spirit. There is a gospel feel in the performance.
The final song L'amour Partout is performed in French and the co-vocal of Sherry Ann and Matt Stern is very enjoyable. The slow melody tickles in the build and the song speaks of ‘taking what is not ours’ and questions ‘what are we fighting for?’ It’s a plea to save the earth from shortsighted power that places profit before everything. It’s a pleasant EP, even if the short duration leaves you wanting more from this talented artist.
Paul McGee
Alice Di Michele Reverse the Flow Alice Otter
This is an album of Folk-infused music from a songwriter who is based in Oregon, and who has released a number of albums, compilations and collaborations over the years. Her concerns include environmental, LGBT, and anti-war sentiments, with such topics reflected in the songs and the words of this talented artist. Such interests are highlighted in her impressive and powerful vocal range, and illustrated on the opening song here, I Wanna Love. It is a celebration of womanhood and calls for self-love to abound when celebrating the influence of the female spirit.
The next song One Little Word is about the sense of separation caused by the use of the ‘Gay’ word, trying to defame same-sex relationships, rather than celebrating the love shared by people ‘Love is beautiful and kind, and I hope you change your mind.’ Misunderstood and hated just for loving what society deems to be alien to our natures.
Falling Through the Cracks tackles issues of homelessness and the lack of care in the system ‘There’s no salvation in this land, people turn their heads instead of lending a hand.’ Worship of profit over people is going to be the death of us all as the cracks continue to appear in society. The electric guitar of Andy Casad in a highlight on this song.
Counting on nature to show the true essence within us all is the theme of The Mystery with beautiful harmony vocals, violin and viola, complimenting the flowing piano melody. Springtime (Here We Go) has a similar focus with the onset of the new season opening the possibilities of living proud and embracing the universe, while the acoustic arrangement on Oh Humanity bemoans the urge of men to make war ‘Will we keep fighting over what was never ours, The earth cannot be bought and sold, It’s just illusion that men can hold power, True power is not for us to hold.’ Amen.
Bonafide has a nice blues rhythm on a song lamenting the evils of the world and the failure to find lasting solutions that can see us live as one; maybe all we can do is focus upon our own meaningful lives together? The Ghost Of Alice is a track with atmospheric violin and a story-song that tells of a murder in rural America, with the spirit-world seeking retribution for dark deeds done ‘And the ghost of Alice sings with the owls at night.’
The final song is Reverse the Flow and it speaks of the power we all have to change the order of things, the communal voice is still loud enough to be heard and to make a difference ‘We’re still here on the ground, we’re still here on this sacred ground.’ Despite the protest of ‘fake news’ in our media, we could ask is nothing ever true unless it comes from the heart? This is her first album in three years and Alice Di Michele continues to prove that class is permanent, with her strong environmental message and her well-crafted songwriting. Yet another home run.
Paul McGee