Sunny War Armageddon In A Summer Dress New West
Sunny War (born Sydney Ward) is very much a fighter and survivor. Her 2023 album, ANTICHRIST GOSPEL, was a statement of endurance and rebirth for the Nashville-born artist. It was also a powerful project which raised her profile immeasurably and led to tours and opening slots with Bonnie Raitt, Iron & Wine, Mitski and Sarah Shook & The Disarmers.
A recoveree of alcohol and substance abuse, Sunny's survival kit has been to launch herself into her art ('If I'm home and not touring, either I'm going to play music all day or I'm going to get drunk. It's really one or the other. I'm just obsessively trying to work on something so that I'm making healthier decisions that day'). That passion has resulted in a body of work that presents powerful messages and ARMAGEDDON IN A SUMMER DRESS is another melting pot of political statements, dispatched by a gifted vocalist whose songs refuse to be framed by any one genre.
As was the case with its predecessor, the recording took place at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville, with the production duties carried out by the studio’s owner, Andrija Tokic (Hurray For The Riff Raff, Alabama Shakes, The Deslondes, Wreckless Eric, Ian Noe). It opens at breakneck speed with the punky One Way Train, which is a statement very much of its time, a prayer for sanity in a messed-up world ('When there's no one left to use and no police or state and the fascists and the classists all evaporate. Won't you meet me on the outskirts of my left brain'). The sweet and soulful Bad Times follows. It's a gorgeous sound that could easily be playing over the airwaves on your local radio station. However, the happy and chirpy sound can't disguise the song's painful thread ('I make the least you can in an hour, I've got no money so I've got no power, back pain and rotting teeth, gets written off as working-class grief').
A pointer towards Sunny's influences are the guests who contribute vocals on the album. Veteran punks John Doe and Steve Ignorant both lend a hand. The former, ex-founder of LA punk band X, adds vocals to Gone Again, and the latter and member of UK Anarcho-punk band Crass, duets on the politically charged Walking Contradiction. Other vocal contributors include California singer-songwriter Tré Burt, who adds vocals on Scornful Heart and is also credited as co-writer on that song. The final contributor is vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Valerie June, who joins Sunny on Cry Baby. The album signs off with Debbie Downer, which may or may not constitute mirror gazing by the author. Either way, it's a call to arms, asking that we should keep fighting, despite the mayhem and disorder that surrounds us. The uplifting Rise particularly emphasises that sentiment ('Rise babe, up like the sun, might not shine again. Bad days go and they come, but the good do too, my friend').
ARMAGEDDON IN A SUMMER DRESS will no doubt be filed under the 'land of plenty' that Americana has become. In truth, it's much more than that; it's from an artist and poet who fuses soul, blues, and roots to create a unique recipe that few others can match. Indeed, I'm scratching my head to identify any other current artist with the vocal and musical skill set to create such beautiful music while primarily commenting on social injustice.
Declan Culliton
The Devil Makes Three Spirits New West
Twenty-three years into a career that kicked off in Santa Cruz, California, The Devil Makes Three have not frittered away any of the high energy and raw emotion that has established them as one of the hardest working groups in the roots genre. Alongside their hectic touring schedules, they have released seven studio albums and three live recordings to date. The Devil Make Three is Pete Bernhard (guitar, vocals), Morgan Eve Swain (upright bass, vocals) and Cooper McBain (guitar, tenor banjo, vocals).
‘There’s a theme of ghosts and death running through this album,’ explains Bernhard, which may account for the recording location of their latest project. Recorded at Dreamland Studios in Woodstock, New York, the studio is a converted church in a wooded landscape, which proved to be a suitable setting for an album whose thread focuses heavily on spirituality and anguish. SPIRITS was produced by Grammy winner Ted Hutt (Old Crow Medicine Crow, Violent Femmes, Dropkick Murphys, Jesse Malin).
Given the grief that Bernhard suffered during the making of the record, he lost his mother, brother and close friend at the time, it’s little surprise that mortality raises its head on a number of occasions. Bernhard is credited as writing eleven of the thirteen tracks, one of which is a co-write with Boaz Vilozny. McBean wrote the remaining two. The title track ponders torment, death and its aftermath (‘I want to go back but the page has been burned. When are you coming home I won’t ever learn’). That questioning and sense of isolation is also at the heart of Lights on Me.
The current rampant economic and political divide that threatens the livelihood and dreams of ordinary people is also given plenty of commentary. The Dark Gets the Best of You is a reminder of the political cunning and controlling tactics at play and a plea to see through them (‘Put down your torches, don’t you know what a mob can do. They just want to see what it looks like when the dark gets the best of you’). Addressing the same subject matter are Divide and Conquer and Half as High.
With one eye on their live performances, The Devil Makes Three excels at creating material that, although it has a playful sensibility, combines that with clever and observational lyrics. It’s an effective formula that has kept them at the forefront of gritty, acoustic roots music with a punky attitude for over two decades. On the strength of their latest record, that chemistry is unlikely to lose any momentum.
Declan Culliton
Juliet McConkey Southern Front Soggy Anvil
In our review of Virginia-born Juliet McConkey’s debut album, DISAPPEARING GIRL, in 2020, we described the songs as ‘sounding if they were composed by a veteran rather than being the first recordings of a novice.’ Recollecting scenes both joyful and distressing from her rural upbringing, the album showcased not only a proficient songwriter but also the possessor of a classic country voice, which did justice to her compositions. Her latest project, SOUTHERN FRONT, more than lives up to that debut effort, although the content has shifted from the nostalgic memories of its predecessor to more immediate adult issues of uncertainty and commitment.
The title and opening track unveils the album’s theme of darkness into light and meditation on life’s challenges. Drenched in pedal steel, beautifully melodic, and with vocals that crest and dip, I hit the replay button on the first listen. A sense of insecurity and uneasiness raises its head in Drifting and Another Time and Place. Both songs address dreams, memories and anxiety, typical concerns that visit during sleepless nights and often seem of lesser concern when morning arrives. The dream for simplicity and a carefree existence is at the heart of Horses Around, and McConkey is joined by her partner James Steinle for their Emmylou and Gram inclusion with When I Say I. Quiet Moments, which bookends the album and features only McConkey’s vocals and guitar, acknowledges the past and present of a relationship and the security that a loving bond can offer.
Produced by James Steinle, who is also credited with writing four of the eight tracks, the couple have created something lovely with SOUTHERN FRONT. A mature suite of songs that tackles vulnerability head-on, with fine playing and a vocal purr by McConkey that nods in the direction of Kelly Willis, the result is a tender and splendid country album.
Declan Culliton
Mike Farris The Sound of Muscle Shoals Compass
‘Country and gospel music is in dire need of some pure heartfelt soul right now. He’s like a secret weapon, he’s loaded with soul,’ says Marty Stuart, speaking about Tennessee native Mike Farris, whose chequered life is the stuff of fiction movies.
Farris’ teenage years were a minefield of alcohol and substance addiction, drug dealing, homelessness and imprisonment. Cleaning up his act, he moved back to Nashville from Knoxville, where he had been living rough, and moved to his father’s house. By way of distraction, he began playing his father’s guitar and writing a couple of songs. That eventually led to the formation, with Rick White, of blues rock outfit, the Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies. With ongoing substance abuse issues and a lack of focus, Farris left the band. In an attempt to remain sober and with a newfound obsession with American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, he turned his attention to gospel music. His first solo album, GOODNIGHT SUN, soon followed in 2002 and five years later, SALVATION IN LIGHTS earned Ferris a record deal with Sony. That set in motion a career in gospel music that earned him a Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album with SHINE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE in 2015.
It’s hardly surprising that Farris would eventually end up at Muscle Shoals to record, given how that soulful sound has been a key influence on his own output. The eleven-track album was self-produced by Farris and recorded at Fame Studios, Studio A, Muscle Shoals. Employing Alabama’s finest session players, vocalists and horn section, and fronted by Farris’ billowing vocals, it’s more than a worthy tribute to the setting where Aretha Franklin, The Staple Singers and Wilson Pickett, to name but a few, recorded some classic soulful songs.
The album opens with the autobiographical Ease On. A commentary on Farris’ early years growing up in Franklin County, Tennessee, it paints a picture where struggles were plentiful but simple life was bliss (‘Mama’s in the kitchen with the light on inside, makin’ us biscuits before the sunrise. Ignorance is sometimes its own reward, Mama never told us we were poor’). The futility of fretting about things outside our control is the message in Sunset Road, and the highs and inevitable lows of the artist’s life are told in the somewhat sardonically titled Bright Lights. Triumph and overcoming emotional wreckage is the order of the day in Bird In The Rain.
Two well-chosen covers are included. The Steve Cropper and William Bell written Slow Train, previously recorded by both The Staple Sisters and Marty Stuart, is beautifully delivered, and Tom Petty’s Swingin’ is given an impressive country-soul makeover. The addictively melodic I’ll Come Running also sounds like it could have been borrowed from Tom Petty’s songbook.
THE SOUND OF MUSCLE SHOALS is an album that pays homage to the music that was very much part of Farris’ upbringing, from the WCDT-1340AM radio station of his young years and his father’s record collection. It proudly celebrates all that is so vital about
Muscle Shoals and the eclectic mix of blues, rock, soul, country and gospel that was born in that space over the past sixty-five years. However, more than simply an exercise in nostalgia, it’s an effort that reaches the sweet spot between soul, blues and country and is a powerfully emotive body of work.
Declan Culliton
Ian M Bailey Lost In A Sound Kool Kat Musik
In years to come, if the printed press still exists, a music magazine is likely to feature Ian M Bailey in an article under the heading ‘Undiscovered’. Bailey is an artist who lives and breathes music but who is more at home creating and recording albums that are full of jangles, melodies, and hooks than he is peddling his wares in a live setting. LOST IN A SOUND is the fourth album he has released in five years, all recorded using basic equipment in his home studio, Small Space Studio, in Preston, Lancashire.
This album follows a similar trajectory to Bailey’s previous work. Aside from the signature sun-kissed and 60s West Coast sound, the songwriting is credited to Bailey and his co-writer, Daniel Wylie, of Cosmic Rough Riders. The artwork, always an impressive feature of his records, was designed by John Washington and the album is supported by the boutique record label Kool Kat Music, which can boast some other excellent under-the-radar artists on their roster. The vocals and backing vocals, Rickenbacker, acoustic guitar, bass, drums, piano, Mellotron, and percussion are all credited to Bailey. His regular collaborator, Alan Gregson (Cornershop, Badly Drawn Boy), working from his West Orange Studios, Bioussac, France, added the orchestral arrangements, lap steel, clarinet, percussion, Texas guitar, synths, vibes and dulcimer. Gregson also edited and mastered the record.
Kicking off with a powerful anti-war anthem, Rooks (‘Killer, maimer, life debaser, an officer no less. Fresh from university, but who’ll clean up your mess’) is brimming with horns, syncs and guitars. Shifting tempos, the gentle, piano-led I’ll Be There To Save You (‘A river runs right through this town, who’ll survive and who will drown?’) follows a thread of holding on to life despite hardship and the mountains to climb. The tender and intimate White Whale’s dreamy pace and layered vocals explode beautifully mid-song with a Bacharach-styled kaleidoscope of strings.
The lyrics support the music rather than the reverse in the otherworldly Deep Blue Waters, and Desert Star is a fully charged instrumental that lands somewhere between Hawkwind and The Grateful Dead. The power poppy Welcome To The Desert (‘To the signals we are sending out where everyone’s pretending there might be a happy ending now’) takes a stab at indifference and apathy during increasingly disorderly and anarchic times. That sentiment of positivity and optimism is further addressed in Don’t Let The Garden Die, which offers the most profound inkling of the writer’s frame of mind throughout this fabulous collection.
Sunburnt, blissed out and breezy summer sounds that hit the spot regardless of the season, LOST IN A SOUND is classic pop/country music of the kind that Gene Clark and The Byrds created many decades ago. Bailey has delivered a record that is a worthy companion to his previous recordings and should herald a well-deserved breakthrough. Either way, I’ve no doubt that he is already writing and composing his next entry into his catalogue of albums that are loaded with positive energy and, for this writer, a delight to spend time with.
Declan Culliton
The Clayton McMichen Story CMH
Recorded in 1981, eleven years after his death, this album was a recognition of an artist who was a leading light in country and bluegrass music in the early to mid-21st century. Born in Georgia in 1900, McMichen was the grandson of a banjoist and the son of a fiddler and began playing the fiddle at an early age. As with many of his peers in those times, his professional career covered a broad base of styles. Country ballads and traditional fiddle tunes may have been his calling, but his repertoire and performances also embraced jazz and dance tunes.
This twenty-six-track recording, performed by a host of bluegrass and country household names, represents the music that was very much a part of McMichen’s musical life from his early career to his passing in 1970. The players are Merle Travis, MacWiseman, Joe Maphis, Jackson D. Kane and Fiddlin’ Red Heron. A collection of instrumentals and traditional classics are reworked, including Fire In The Mountain, Carroll Country Blues, and In The Pines. Blues standards like Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Trouble In Mind and Georgia Turner and Bert Martin’s timeless House Of The Rising Sun are also included. The latter was immortalised and introduced to a broader audience by The Animals in 1964. Further evidence of the diversity of music covered by McMichen is the inclusion of dance hall standards, I’m Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover and Dancehall Waltz.
A member of Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers in the 1920s, McMichen’s first hit as a solo act was Sweet Bunch of Roses, which sold over one hundred thousand records in 1927. He retired in 1955, but as the folk music revival in the mid-1960s became a popular movement, he was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, which relaunched his career. He continued to perform regularly from then until his passing in 1970.
McMichen may not be a household name outside the bluegrass, country, and old-time music community and its supporters. However, thanks to CMH Records (Country Music Heritage) and the artists working on this worthy reissue, now available on all digital platforms, one of the forefathers of American roots music should reach a much broader audience.
Declan Culliton
Tobacco City Horses Scissortail
Here’s an album that will clear out the fumes with some well placed cosmic country grooves, placing the Chicago-based band among those who draw elements from a earlier time, creating something that is in fact more timeless and well-placed for a contemporary audience who have a interest in that particular mix of sounds. What you pick up on from the opening track Autumn is the blend of the vocals of Chris Coleslaw and Lexi Goddard, along with the pedal steel guitar smoothing gliding around them, setting out largely what Tobacco City is about. Andy ‘Red’ PK is the man to credit with his important contribution to the sound throughout the album. There is an immediate connection to some Gram/Emmylou moments, though that is not to diminish how good this pair work together. The other ten players listed also bring much to the proceedings on an album that I liked on first listen and has only grown more since then. There are also some immersing songwriting, strong arrangements and production involved, however none of these elements are credited (that I can find).
The voices also take you back to some sibling-like harmonies, especially on the three versions of the title track that are included. The three versions are ambient in nature, with a feel throughout that infuses some slow and atmospheric instrumentation, enhancing the semi-psychedelic and cosmic principles at work over the arrangements. All are bolstered by the use of backing vocals from several of those involved in the recording. Both Coleslaw and Goddard have voices well capable of taking the lead on some tracks and can hold that position well, but there is no doubting the overall support that is given by the others.
There are a number of highlights here including Fruit From The Vine, and the evocation of the western plains and an earlier history on Buffalo. It features some sterling guitar and steel playing too and ends with the chorus of a traditional cowboy song ‘Home On The Range.’ Other songs tend evoke life in a small town and how that experience can change over time in terms of recollections that soften the thoughts. Blue Deja Vu is a slow consideration of some memories of past moments. Mr Wine is a vibrant pulsing song that appears first in a ‘radio edited’ version, then a longer version that ends in an extended instrumental workout, that runs well beyond the initial song structure before bringing it back at the end with its “bye, bye blues” refrain. This has a feel that is reminiscent of the Everly Brothers that is effective and pleasing. Bougainvillea is perhaps the single most potent track, reflecting how youth allows you to get away with things that in later years would not be that easy, but the perspective of those days remains a clear insight and retention.
The third version of Horses closes the album. Another short meditation that, like much of the album, remembers an innocence that has since given way, that we often have to lose that sense of liberation to deal with the realities of growing older, and having more solid responsibilities overall. However, throughout the album’s playing time, you can close your eyes and drift into another consciousness, floating along on its vision and validity.
Stephen Rapid
Kevin Stonerock Party Of One Self Release
Like many of his contemporaries, it is likely that in terms of making his music Kevin Stonerock is essentially making it for a ‘party of one.’ First and foremost, it is a labour of love, but one that is there to reach out to a wider audience of like-minded listeners. As with his previous six albums, this falls neatly under the country/Americana category. It is easy to like these songs, with Stonerock’s lively vocal presence and melodic sensibility. He has assembled a set of supportive players, including Gabriel Stonerock on guitars, fiddler Shane Guse and Ed Ringwald on pedal steel. They have a driving rhythm section that includes Stonerock himself on bass, with drummer Derrick Carnes. Stonerock also adds acoustic and baritone guitar. His songs tell tales of small towns, past memories and those, seemingly large, problems that everyone of a certain age faces.
Summer Time, for instance, looks back at a time when it seemed there was a simplicity to how the pace of life was, back as one was growing up, a time when “dreams overcome reality.” Then, conversely, with Down Home Ain’t Down Home Anymore, he sees the other side of that coin as he faces the changes that are happening, with people who used to leave doors unlocked no longer having that sense of community. That may seem a slightly rose coloured view but is never-the-less a common one when looking back. This theme continues with This Old House, which reminisces on the home and house he grew up in and where his recollections of family began and remain. Equally he recognises that things are never without complications or issues, noting that “in this world there will always be trouble” in North Of November, in a time that he never remembers feeling colder.
That sense of nostalgia tinged with uncertainty pervades the themes. The title track takes the satisfaction that lies in being comfortable within one’s own skin and company, something that comes across over the album. Here he is the master of ceremonies, making the album that this time in his life demands, something that can easily be understood, even if the references largely relate to his Midwest upbringing. Neither is he unaware of times that might’ve been forgotten but were undoubtedly not without a sense of distraction and devilment. In I Heard That I Had A Good Time has him recalling that although things might not have gone to plan he was left “standing on the corner of Misery and Wine / I’m walking in the rain / I’m walking in the rain / But I guess I can’t complain ‘cause I guess I had a good time.”
Within the same mind-set is the gentle love song, All Those Years Ago, where he asks that he be forgiven for all the mistakes he made, but declaring that he won’t forget the love they shared. The final track kicks up the dust with the swing of Sidewinder, which it seems is a train, a car and a love interest, all delivered with the enthusiasm that is shared throughout the album. Kevin Stonerock is undoubtedly a talented player, singer and writer who has made an album he must feel happy with, and one that could easily please others. It is undemanding but leaves the listener feeling uplifted and knowing they have spent the time in good company.
Stephen Rapid
Helene Cronin Maybe New Mexico Self Release
It’s always good to hear new music from Cronin as it is likely to be a collection of thoughtful songs, finely balanced playing and a vocal delivery that is imbued with life, love and loss - something that comes with time and telling observation. This time out the album has been produced, engineered and mixed by Mitch Dane and recorded in Nashville. Also in the team were Bobby Terry on all things stringed, and Charlie Lowell on keyboards who, along the other team players, are understated but entirely effective.
This is no more apparent than on Power Lines, a tender evocation of understanding that in a relationship one partner might feel that their emotions are not always reciprocated. “Oh, the one who's more in love is at the mercy of / The one who doesn't feel it as strong / And that's how the power lines are draw.” The fate of a small town where copper mining was once the employment mainstay is the subject of the song Copperhill. Co-written by Cronin and Lydia Simonds, it evokes, with a solid swampy groove, a particular time and place. Many of the songs here have been written with sympathetic fellow writers (including a number with Scott Sean White), but all fit easily with the overall sound that Cronin summons. The title songs is an example, largely a clever use of place names, written by the three composers, about moving around to different states and towns in an attempt to forget a lost liaison. “I spent a month in Oklahoma / Still felt too close to Tennessee / Started heading west and I'll just keep going / Till I'm over you and me … or maybe I'll get lost in Las Cruces“ There is much to highlight within the stories that will resonate in a way that is insightful and understandable. Rifleman is a moving telling of the post-war stress suffered by a close relative, who still suffers its long term effects. It is a perceptible portrait of a person going from the small farm to a foreign war, and coming back having withdrawn from that former life. It points a picture that is true to life.
The song Switzerland takes that country’s unaligned status as a, perhaps, unreal reality, suggesting that there’s no place that is without conflict, collateral damage with neutral ground, and therefore no such place as Switzerland. If you were told at birth the day you would die, but not the actual year, is the premise of Not The Year, a meditation on that very consideration. The storyline is very much in the title of Ain’t That Just Like A Man, a man who makes her glad to be the woman she is. He is a loving, protective companion who is able to help carry the weight when she can’t. Leaving your mark in life, no matter how small, or how difficult is what Maker’s Mark aspires to, leaving a place in a better place than it was found. It has an anthemic quality of purpose. Similarly in Dear Life, an open letter to the way that things never seem to work out as might have been planned, but allows finding “beauty in the mess.” A slow piano and cello ballad, it has hope in its heart.
Another stand out is the acoustic song of faith, or lack of it, that is outlined in God Stopped By, which features some plaintive dobro playing. It has that thought held by many in the lyric “Why He lets the bad things happen if He's really good.” Further thoughts on that overall theme is central to Visitors which shows that, in fact, in this life we are just visitors who are “passing through the same revolving door.” As with much of the album, there is a gentleness to these questions, maybe not the answers but open enough to allow opinion. This all marks out Helene Cronin as a singer and songwriter who allows these possibilities to be openly discussed in a musical setting, one that is as rewarding as it is accomplished, and part of a body of work that has seen some equally enriching releases.
Stephen Rapid