David Newbould Average Fidelity Vol 1 Blackbird
Produced and recorded in his home studio, Carport Livin’ in East Nashville, AVERAGE FIDELITY VOL.1 follows Canadia David Newbould’s explosive LIVE IN GERMANY from 2024.
The 2020 restrictions during COVID led Newbould to record and release his album POWER UP!, working alongside producer and multi-instrumentalist Scot Sax (Wanderlust, Robert Plant, Aaron Lee Tasjan). If POWER UP! was a two-person effort, he has gone one step further with his latest record, contributing vocals, guitars, bass, piano, organ and drums in what is in every sense of the word a ‘solo’ album. The only outside input came from Tommy Goss who added drums on two tracks, and Julian McClannahan who played fiddle on one track.
Newbould’s career path has included playing with indie-rock band The Mercenaries in New York City, teaming up with fellow rocker Jon Dee Graham and dobro/ steel guitar wonder Cindy Cashdollar in Austin, Texas, before finally settling in Nashville, where he has worked with fellow axe men Dan Baird and Aaron Lee Tasjan.
AVERAGE FIDELITY VOL.1 includes a number of Newbold’s customary face melters, Fractured Love and I Wanna Quit Drinkin’ (But My Baby Won’t Let Me) are raw, full on, and demand to be played at maximum volume. Elsewhere, he includes a couple of genre-crossing curveballs. He dips into prog-rock with the super Into The Deep, a co-write with Aaron Lee Tasjan, which brings to mind Todd Rundgren. The country ditty Straight Shot To Bakersfield was triggered by a California tour with L.A.-based honky tonker, Rosy Nolan.
Troubled times and disappointment are at play in Broken Hearts Are Paint, co-written with Newbould’s East Nashville neighbour, Boo Ray. Human vulnerabilities are also the thread that runs through Rainy Day Heart, which charts a relationship falling apart.
A hard-edged album of heartland Americana and rock-tinged songs, despite its DIY creation, it’s a worthy addition to Newbould’s back catalogue, and the good news is that Vol. 2 is likely to be released next year.
A regular visitor to Europe, Newbould is due to play dates in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, and Sweden in August/September, where no doubt he will be featuring material from this album as well as his back catalogue. Get along to see him if you can, his live shows are simply dynamic.
Declan Culliton
Anna Tivel Animal Poem Fluff & Gravy
A leading light in the folk/singer songwriter genre of the past decade, Anna Tivel’s latest album, ANIMAL POEM, is her seventh studio recording. La Conner, Washington, born but residing in Portland, Oregon, since the age of eighteen, her writing often focuses on the plight of the underprivileged and ordinary people attempting to survive in an increasingly challenging environment. A quite prolific writer, this record is her fourth in five years, following on from BLUE WORLD (2021), OUTSIDERS (2022) and LIVING THING (2024).
Tivel worked with Portland-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Weber for the first time on this recording, and that marriage works seamlessly across the ten tracks. Weber co-produced with Tivel, as well as contributing electric and acoustic guitar. Recorded live in a circle with all the players present, the other contributors, mostly close friends of Tivel, included Micah Hummel (drums, percussion), Galen Clark (Wurlitzer, organ, piano, Mellotron), Sam Howard (bass), Nicole McCabe (saxophone) and Danny Austin-Manning (percussion).
‘Every album is a snapshot, a momentary study of the way a mind reaches for understanding. I can feel myself reaching in these songs for whatever is right beyond my grasp. Mortality and connection. Suffering and meaning’, explains Tivel, on her latest observations and writings.
At a few seconds short of six minutes, Paradise (Is It In The Mind) is simply stunning and one that had me hitting the repeat button a number of times. Writing from the perspective of an ageing and lonely individual, after a dreamy opening with Tivel’s gentle questioning vocals, the intensity increases mid-song with vocals laced with frustration and a scorching guitar break in front of a hypnotic drum beat. Considering separation and the passage of time is the less frenetic Badlands and the title track reflects on the ever-growing gap between the affluent and the destitute, (‘None of it is really fair, born into the atmosphere breathing gold or stealing when you’re hungry, everyone you come upon, holds a picture in their mind, ask them and they might just show you’).
Tivel’s vocals and tenor guitar deliver the stripped-down ode to a lost friend in HOUGH AVE, 1966, and fond retrospections of past summers emerge in the jazzy White Goose. The sharp contrasts of existing in this messed-up world are echoed in Holy Equation (‘good luck to the lucky few…. gold dust blooming from black gun powder….God bless this whole mess, and God bless my neighbors’)
Every listen opens new doors in ANIMAL POEM, and each song plays out like a meditation on life’s challenges. Attentive listening is the key to maximum return on this hugely impressive record, from an artist who consistently pours her heart and soul into her work.
Declan Culliton
Emma Swift The Resurrection Game Tiny Ghost
The 2020 debut album, BLONDE ON THE TRACKS, from Australian-born Emma Swift, was a joyful labour of love with a delve into the back catalogue of her beloved Bob Dylan. Swift’s sophomore album was prompted by entirely contrasting circumstances. The core theme of THE RESURRECTION GAME is her journey from despair and hopelessness to rebirth and recovery. The material for the record was written over a two-year period while the Nashville-based artist recovered from mental illness that resulted in a seven-week hospital stay followed by a twelve-month recovery period, assisted by therapy and medication. The songs probe the sagging anguish and remorse of Swift’s trauma while also rejoicing in the love and support that aided her recovery.
The album benefits hugely from the chosen recording process. The simple option would have been for Swift to call on her talented Nashville neighbours and record in any of the numerous studios close to home. Instead, she and her producer Jordan Lehning (Rodney Crowell, Kacey Musgraves, Caitlin Rose) headed to the Isle of Wight in the U.K. where they spent a week recording at the Chale Abbey studio, a large stone barn dating back to the 16th century and located in the grounds of one of the oldest domestic buildings on the island. Accompanied by her studio band of Nashville-based big hitters, including Spencer Cullum (pedal steel), Juan Solorzano (guitar), Eli Beaird (bass), Dom Billet (drums) and with Lehning playing pianos, synths, vibes and glockenspiel, they recorded the album's ten tracks live in that magical setting. By removing Swift and her contributors from their comfort zone of Nashville, whether intentionally or otherwise, the album’s musical direction steers clear of the bulging Americana genre. Instead, its direction takes on an imposing eclectic baroque-pop style that recalls the early careers of Scott Walker and Kate Bush.
The lush arrangements and Swift’s emotion-drenched vocals on the opening track, Nothing And Forever, could have been the perfect soundtrack to the closing episode of Twin Peaks. Equally dramatic is the title track, which recounts a week-long therapy retreat at The Hoffman Institute in California (‘With ash in my hair and dirt in my nails, the eternal story, we love and we fail. Breathing in fire and calling it air, I've come to surrender to what was never there’). At a gentler pace, Catholic Girls Are Easy questions the absurd religious teaching that we are born with sin and the subsequent guilt it can promote (‘I've spent a lifetime praying to folks who were not there. You know they were not there’). Similarly paced, the dreamlike Going Where The Lonely Go is a gorgeous statement of undying love, as is the testimony of rebirth and renewal, No Happy Endings. More sinister is the ghostly and dramatic Signing Off With Love, which references the confessional poet Robert Lowell and avant-garde poet and writer Maggie Nelson.
Swift’s debut album was a pointer towards an artist with a keen eye for reconstructing cover songs, but THE RESURRECTION GAME raises the bar to an entirely different level. It may have taken illness and debilitation to trigger this project, and I certainly didn’t see this coming, but the upshot is a spectacular accomplishment of impeccable song crafting with tailor-made arrangements.
Declan Culliton
Joshua Josué Beneath The Sand Electric Chololand
The debut album from a man known as El Gringo Mariachi is an uplifting and accomplished blend of heartland twangy rock and the various traditions of music from south of the border - one they have dubbed Chicano rock. Some may view the combination as perhaps just skimming the surface of both. But to these ears it ticks the boxes in many ways. Josué has a natural affinity with his sources and the original material, which he has composed himself or, as with the title track, co-written with Roly Salley and Ben Rice. The exception is Cartas de Amor which was written by Mikel Erentxun Acosta and Jesus Maria Corman.
The overall sound recording and production from Pat Kearns, in Goat Mountain Recording, has all the muscle and motive it requires to reveal a mastery of the intended purpose of the album. Add to that a studio posse par excellence and you can easily understand why it works so well. You have on board Chris Isaak’s bassist Roly Salley and guitarist Hershel Yatovitz, Dwight Yoakam’s drummer Mitch Marine, Los Lobos saxophonist Steve Berlin, Joel Guzmán on accordion, keyboardist Mark Breiterbach and, finally, Mathew Peluso on pedal steel. An array of these above players and others, including Murry Hammond and Angelynn Pierce, are featured on backing vocals.
However Josué leads from the front on guitar and vocals, handling the dual language lyrics with a depth and well-disposed delivery. The opening track, Restless Heart, has a strong rhythmic pulse with some very appealing twang-laden guitar sounds. Bogart & Me is a travel song about a man and his trusted canine companion moving on down the road ,with Guzman’s accordion upfront and Berlin’s sax making their presence felt. Solitario is sung in Spanish but easily manages to convey its sense of loneliness. Similarly, the title track’s sense of loss and grief is palpable, written during a time of travelling by motorcycle and looking for meaning along the way and finding some of that in the landscape and Latin influenced music. In both he’s trying to forget and trying to find - “I swear I see your face with every border I cross / These Central American highways a place to get lost.”
Following that are another three songs sung in Spanish (including the above mentioned non Josué co-write) and I can only guess at what they are telling us, other than from their musical implications - which are all stalwart in that intention. They contain a sense of romance as well as the recondite. Another highlight is the dynamic Big Train, built around an equally striking guitar motif and the vocal admonishment that there is a “Train as black as night just like my soul.” That may be so but, Josué’s music is full of life and counterbalances any inherent but realistic and restless melancholy and one that has some elevation and Chicano ethos in its soul.
The album closes with another two well realised treatises on the overall atmosphere, in the all night desert walking drama of Plaza Expiatorio, and the more moody She Is Guadalajara that uses the pedal steel effectively to highlight its drifting nature. This will be my, and doubtless many others’, first encounter with this Portland-based artist. It is to be hoped he further hones his approach to his blend, which may not be unique in intention but is delivered with a skill and understanding that will be fruitful in further endeavours, especially if the assembled players can be reunited with Josué’s musical talents.
Stephen Rapid
Pete Droge Fade Away Blue Self Release
Some may best remember Droge for his 1994 album NECKTIE SECOND, when he was signed to Rick Rubin’s label. The stand-out track for this writer was the song The Fourth of July. It fitted into much that was happening around that time musically. Since then there have been several more albums (and labels and great songs), plus a collaborative band, The Thorns, in 2003. FADE AWAY BLUE is released under his own name, but includes several songs co-written with long-time partner Elaine Summers. They have also put out three albums together in recent times, but now we have this album of more folkish styled songs. Here, under the helm of Droge and Paul Bryan, they are give a rounded reading with a full band which includes the latter on bass and Mellotron. He is joined in the rhythm section by noted drummer Jay Bellerosea nd a host of other players, including single track contributions by Greg Leisz on pedal steel and fiddler Gabe Witcher. Summers adds her harmony vocals throughout, for a warm and relaxed (for the most part) sound.
While I lost contact with Droge after the initial releases (a reminder of a time when if an album was not on a major label it was quite difficult to get hold of an indie artist release, before streaming and downloads) many in his fan base did not and the new album will doubtless appeal to them. It may not be obvious, on a casual listen to some of the slower songs, that he is often talking of an individual’s search for an identity and an understanding of time and place. Dealing with love both present, past and unrequited, this relates to Droge’s search to find his birth mother. It’s a journey that many have taken in the face of, often, bureaucratic obstacles to finding someone who, for one reason or another, may not want to have that contact. In Droge’s case that opportunity was lost when he discovered that his birth mother had recently passed away. Song For Barbara Ann deals with that difficult reality. The people who did raise him is the theme of other songs, such as You Called Me Kid, a fine song that opens the album. Lonely Mother comes from the same thought source but from a different perspective, as does Gypsy Rose which imagines her as a young free spirit. It has been for Droge a journey that has brought him face to face with pain and healing and knowing more about himself, much of which he has translated into song with a tenderness and truth.
Other songs take a more lasting look at the long term relationship with his collaborator and wife, Elaine Summers. Bare Tree is an example of the gratitude that such a longterm relationship has brought to him. The album title is a consideration of a state of mind and body emerging from a period of “the blues”, a term for a depressive situation that he and many others have faced. This album may be very helpful to others who have encountered a similar path, yet even if none of these is immediately evident, the album will engage many on a purely musical level for what it delivers as an album experience. I found that the song Skeleton Crew was the one track that, this time out, stuck in my head. But that’s just me and many will find others. This is an album that is personal yet will also find a wider affinity within an Americana audience at large.
Stephen Rapid
Tobin Kirk Live and Solo at De Groeverij 2024 Self Release
This singer songwriter started his career as a band member in indie-power-pop groups. A move to Nashville sparked a career turn into the area of songwriting but subsequent family commitments saw Tobin taking a step away from the music industry for a number of years.
He has now returned with a focus on making up for lost time, and judging by what I can find on his profile he has released two studio albums and seven singles since 2022 last. An impressive output by any standards and now we are given a live album, recorded in the Netherlands during a residency in De Groeverij, Hoten, Utrecht during 2024.
His photo image is somewhat reminiscent of a young James Joyce with his waxed moustache, glasses and Stetson. Not that his songs are anything approaching the literary depth of this renowned novelist and poet. However, in musical terms, Tobin Kirk presents himself as a talented guitarist and he sings in a clear and confident vocal tone that brings plenty to enjoy. The eight songs included here are selected across his recorded output to date, with four of the tracks appearing on his LESSONS IN LONLEY album from 2022. There are a further two songs included from the Waterworks album in 2024, plus a couple of singles.
The live album is recorded with an impressive production quality and both vocals and acoustic guitar are captured in a bright and engaging style. Tobin sings with great energy and although the songs can sound just a little thin without further instrument augmentation, you are given enough in the mix to want to explore the studio releases in greater detail.
Mostly the songs are concerned with relationship issues and the dynamic between making the heart robust against inevitable hurt, versus opening it up to all the possibilities of true love. Titles such as Lessons In Lonely, Scar Tissue, I Can’t Cry All Day and My Song Is Blue give you all the clues that you need regarding the direction in which these songs are headed. All in all, this is a fine starter before the main course for anyone who is interested to investigate further. Full marks for the talent on display and I look forward to hearing Tobin Kirk when surrounded by his full band in adding greater dimension to these song of the heart.
Paul McGee
Dave Steel Wooden Music Self Release
Another fine example of the hidden gems awaiting discovery in the roots music scene of Australia. There have been many examples of real quality over the decades from “down under” and all have the same common ingredient; a special essence that elevates the music and rises above the mainstream.
Nominated for several ARIA Awards over the years in the Australian music industry, Dave Steel recorded this album in the Huon Valley, Lutruwita (Tasmania). It was recorded live in the studio with minimal overdubs, and with Ross Smithard on fiddle, Louis Gill on double bass, Tiffany Eckhardt on backing vocals, and Dave Steel on guitars and lead vocals, the ten songs deliver a very impressive album.
The atmospheric Road opens the album with imagery of driving at night, alone with internal thoughts, reflecting on family, and travelling towards some unknown destination. The spontaneous playing on the melody has a free-form folky structure with plenty of space for improvisation. It’s the longest song included here and quite an interesting opening statement. Sea Wind is another long track and the ensemble playing is very addictive with an easy pulse in the rhythm, and the creative fiddle playing of Smithard rising above and creating images of sweet freedom on the ocean wave. Upside is a reflective tune that reminds me of fellow Australian Paul Kelly, with lots of local references to growing up in local neighbourhoods and the experiences that shaped the adult. Like As Not is another jaunt along a dusty country road with a sunny rhythm to enjoy the feeling of being in the moment.
This is the first album from Dave Steel in 20 years, and the power of the new material has me wondering why this veteran of the Australian roots music scene has taken such a long spell away from his solo output. His back catalogue comprises nine previous releases, and Dave is a singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer who was a founding member of Weddings Parties Anything, and has worked as a sideman and session musician with many of Australia’s finest artists.
On Sickle Moon he takes a slow tempo arrangement and embellishes it with an atmospheric vocal performance on singing the blues, the understated playing of Smithard and Gill adding great atmospherics to the song. Go In Peace follows and its mellow flow is a real highlight, and perhaps a tribute to a friend who has passed away ‘ go in peace my brother, all your debts are paid, all your chances taken, all the plans you made.’ This is the type of album where you want to be seated live in the room with a nice glass of wine and the music wrapping around you in the intimacy of the moment.
Hard Times is another slow blues with a less-is-more approach in the playing dynamic. Dripping in atmosphere. Winter is another slice of pure Paul Kelly in the descriptive content of the song ‘there's snow up high on the mountain, an icy wind is cutting me down, I'm up here in a shack by the fire, with a big black dog and a shotgun.‘ Woodsmoke looks at searching out external stimulations while the simple things of nature lie quietly around us as peaceful solutions ‘ we chase the mighty dollar, we talk and fuss and fight, and all the while the world she turns, softly through the night.’
The cover version of a Skip James song Hard Time Killin’ Floor is particularly memorable with the mournful vocal and fiddle bringing fresh spotlight upon the poverty to be found in society, both past and present, from the depression era through to the war torn countries of the 21st century.
It's such a great joy to discover these artists from the other side of the world, making such vital music and contributing to the global creativity of roots music. Final song The Dying Stockman visits the last days of a livestock farmer and is very much in the way of an old dirge from the land. There is clearly a vibrant roots scene in Australia, pioneered in earlier times by the integration of bush balladeers and the emigrant music of English, Irish and Scottish traditions, among many others. This album, at over 50 minutes of classy songs, echoes this rich past and stands as a ringing endorsement of the creative source. It will bring great joy and reward to all who partake.
Paul McGee
Vince Santoro Exposed Self Release
This excellent album is a debut recording from an experienced drummer and session player to the stars, with the confident and rich sound delivered courtesy of producer and long-time friend George Marinelli. Over a long career Santoro has played and toured with the likes of Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, Emmy Lou Harris, Carlene Carter, Shania Twain, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Santoro also played with The Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings), among many others.
On this solo album of nine tracks, Vince Santoro contributes on lead vocals, drums, guitar, synth bass, and electric bass. He is joined by George Marinelli on electric, acoustic, slide guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, synth bass, keyboards, harmonica, percussion and backing vocals. The duo also have the talented Barbara Santoro on harmony vocals and piano, with single track appearances from Benny Harrison on keyboards, backing vocals, Jim Hoke on horns, and Jonell Mosser, vocals on “I’d Be Dancing.”
Santoro draws on the experience that Marinelli has gained over years of working with many prominent artists like Bruce Hornsby and Bonnie Raitt. The title track Exposed concerns someone who feels out of his depth in a love and a loser in the affairs of the heart ‘I might join the club where shot-down lovers go.’
Another song, I’d Be Dancing follows the joie de vivre of a young girl dancing down the street and elsewhere Rec Room harks back to teenage days when a den in the family home was the centre of the universe for growing adolescents in need of their own space. Another childhood memory is visited on Long Slow Rain and days when time stood still lake fishing in the rain.
For Adeline is a heart-felt tribute to the passing of his mother and captured in the words ‘Seems everyone she knew is in my living room, Together we’re the legacy of love that she left, With casseroles and constant conversation I can smile a busy smile, The fact she’s gone really hasn’t hit me yet.’ On Shade Tree the search for home someplace else is tempered by the fact that it really always existed right on your doorstep ‘Each time I run from town to town, Thinkin’ it’s greener, I leave behind a chance to find, That piece of fertile ground.’
The plight of the homeless is addressed on What’s That Like? And the words hit hard ‘What’s that like … By the fireside, Safe behind 4 walls of stone?, I only know the unforgiving sidewalk that I call home.’ The target on Everything is well chosen and the irony of where the charlatan may hide ‘It’s Everything, every phrase that masquerades as intellect, Every point that you think you made that doesn’t pass the test.’
A Too Familiar Sight is a song about crippling shyness and self-consciousness ‘Why do you watch me from the mirror in my room? You could go anywhere but this is what you choose, Another lonely night – a too familiar sight.’ Perhaps in a previous existence, Vince Santoro suffered the same doubts and fears that all folks encounter when looking for our place in the world. With his CV bursting from the great musical journey his life has embarked upon these days Santoro can only look back with a benign smile at where he has arrived from. An album that brings plenty of interesting moments and one that comes recommended.
Paul McGee
Skydiggers Dreams and Second Chances Self Release
Skydiggers is a Canadian roots rock band from Toronto that was formed by Andy Maize and Josh Finlayson. Since 1990, they have released 19 albums/EPs, and have seen a number of personal changes along the way. Original bandmates Andy Maize and Josh Finlayson remain to this day and this new album continues the legacy and success of the band. Recording took place at the Bathouse, in Bath, Ontario and the home studio of another legendary Canadian band The Tragically Hip.
A great album that is filled with interesting group dynamics. Clearly comfortable in their own internal zone, the musicians deliver such an impressive array of talent across these 14 songs. Being optimistic is the key message of the title track Dreams and Second Chances with the husband asking his wife ‘I believe in dreams and second chances, I believe in holding on to hope, So why don’t you.’
In an increasingly fractured world it’s hard to keep belief in positive outcomes but the Skydiggers seek out that silver lining and on Start Again they sing that ‘What you don't have, You will not need, The past it's gone, That's plain to see,’ perhaps the essential mantra by which to live our lives going forward. Jessy Bell Smith takes lead vocal on Mother’s Pocket and this song about faithless love is wrapped in a traditional country arrangement with the understated instrumentation reflecting the sense of hurt. The compelling rhythm on Snow Blind carries a beat that is reminiscent of a Roy Orbison tune and the lead vocal of Andy Maize is very close to the legendary singer.
The musicians excel throughout with Derrick Brady (bass guitar), Aaron Comeau (electric guitar), Josh Finlayson (acoustic guitar), Michael Johnston(keyboards), and Noel Webb (drums), and the twin vocal leads of Jessy Bell Smith and Andy Maize have plenty of quality to pivot around in the song arrangements.
Walk With the Stars is a dreamscape in which nature is the central essence of the repeated chorus ‘The older the moon, The brighter it shines, We walk with the stars, One night at a time.’ Apparently the song is in tribute to Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip who died in 2017, and the song is a co-write with Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo.
Other highlights include the interesting I Love You, Too… Maybe which appears to tackle doubts internalised by a new father on the arrival of a baby into his life. My interpretation may be wide of the mark but lines such as ‘In this room full of people, I feel so all alone, Pushing ahead, Full of doubt’ have me pondering whether all is not well.
Elsewhere we are treated to the slow melody of Quiet Mind and a message to learn from past experience in order to live fully in the present moment. The band play in a restrained and harmonious rhythm on the song, while the vocals add sweet succour.
There is a love breakdown on the songs Broken Year and One, Maybe Two, Maybe… where the words speak volumes ‘Promises we made but who's keeping score, And I can't remember what we're fighting for.’ The final song is All Good All the Time and it restores faith in the urge to keep going no matter what travails we carry. Turning full circle we find Skydiggers essentially looking at a “glass half full” scenario, despite the forays into darker territory on some of these songs. As always, music to challenge and also stimulate the senses. A Skydiggers album is always worthy of attention and hopefully you will agree that the wait has been worth the time spent.
Paul McGee