Louis Brennan Self-Titled Self Release
‘What’s it all about, Ted?’, Fr. Dougal might (or might not) have said to Fr. Ted, pondering the perennial conundrum of the meaning of life. This is essentially the subject of Louis Brennan’s recent eponymous record, his third overall. It finds him in entirely different territory than he was in 2022’s LOVE ISLAND, which was mostly a cynical critique of post-Brexit Britain, with just hints of dissatisfaction with his personal situation. LOUIS BRENNAN finds the Irish singer-songwriter at an all time low, brought on by the deaths of both his parents within a year of each other, and compounded by the pandemic and the financial and personal insecurity it generated. As if this wasn’t enough, he had finally come to the realisation that he is an alcoholic. The existential crisis that ensued is detailed with raw honesty and painful detail across the ten tracks that run into each other, and are best listened to in sequence.
In Brendan the Navigator, Brennan envies the self-belief, faith and courage of the famous early Irish saintly navigator, who launched himself off into the uncharted Atlantic in search of the unknown. We learn that Brennan "can’t stand the person I’ve become” and that he is “a broken man”. Much of the album was written while he sought refuge on the Northumberland coast alone, in the throes of a total meltdown. The record is therefore bookended by songs with nautical references, which also hark back to his childhood where he was raised in a south Dublin coastal suburb. Having left home at seventeen, Brennan’s relationship with Louis Sr probably mirrored that of most teenage boys with their fathers, yet he realises with hindsight that he never got to resolve the issues and now it’s too late. This sense of regret is explored further in The Days of Wine and Roses. “But you said you could not forgive me / the baggage was mine to carry / and mine to unpack” is the first of many references to his tricky relationship with his father. He also admits to "making his mother cry”, while being a “smoked salmon socialist … with “middle class confidence”.
Musically, produced by himself with his usual crew of musicians, and recorded by Owain Jenkins in his Studiowz in Wales, the sound varies on each track, from full on strings to delicate piano and acoustic guitar. We have Ned Cartwright on keys and saxophone, Joe Harvey-White on pedal and lap steel and guitars, Dr. Laurence Saywood on bass and harmonica and Chris 'CJ' Jones on drums and percussion. Backing vocals from Jack Francis, Angela Gannon and Hannah Nicholson are particularly noteworthy, adding pathos to the emotional lyrical content.
Booze Glorious Booze, a pastiche of the famous song from the musical Oliver!, acknowledges for the first time that Brennan has been using alcohol as a crutch throughout his adult life, but here he is also bidding it goodbye. The raunchy barrelhouse music becomes somewhat wonky, appropriately, as the full mass of voices sings the ironic chorus. Death Is An Illusion perfectly evokes that hazy, dreamlike, twilight zone experienced in the aftermath of the death of a loved one. Strings and saxophone contribute to the strange feeling that "Everything feels different somehow / But no-one else has changed”, with two different tunes playing simultaneously and clashing in an unnerving backdrop, ”Maybe you’ll just call me now / Say it’s all been a mistake”. One of the most harrowing songs is Blood Is Thicker Than Water, oscillating between reminiscences of the death and funeral of his father, the earlier cutting short of a visit home to see his folks because of the Covid lockdown, and Brennan's sobriety. More regrets about the strained relationship with his father surface, ”On the day I left the country / My mother said you cried”, but it seems that only in hind sight does the adult Louis understand the title of the song …”My brother gave the eulogy / While my mother gripped my hand / Rings digging into my fingers / I could finally understand”.
The Doing The Thing expresses his frustration with his lack of major success in the music business and how he has left himself financially precarious as a result, Joe Harvey-White’s pedal steel arrangement lending it a countrified air. With its quiet soul/jazz groove, I’m not Ready To Say Goodbye is another particularly difficult song, expressing Brennan's pain at his mother’s illness and passing. “Who’s gonna break my fall / Who’s gonna pick me up / Put me back together again”. Holloway Road used to be his ’spiritual home’ in his adopted city of London, but he’s tired of it now, “living in a foreign country takes its toll”, but this may be more a reflection of the distance from his failing mother at that time. Mary Brennan also features heavily in Meet People Where They’re At, her many sage pieces of advice and familiar phrases are punctuated with huge regret for not grabbing all the chances that he was given.
Finally, there’s little bit of hope in the closing song, Lindisfarne. Still grieving, “just a little boy lost / trying to find his way back home”, we see a chink of light punctuating the dark, and the musical palette confirms it, as does Brennan’s holler and throaty laugh in the jazzy, swinging outro.
A hard listen but an essential one, and a magnificent record.
Eilís Boland
Trever M Keith We Drank From A Poisoned Well Antagonist
The title of the album suggests that things that can so easily occur in one person’s life and times can happen to many, something that allows the listener to gain from an album that relates to them on some level. This is Keith’s debut release as a solo artist, his previous tenure was as songwriter, guitarist and front man for the Californian punk band Face to Face. He is yet another artist who sees the direct linear link between classic country’s reality tales and that of punk’s polemic. It is also interesting to note how over time Keith has moved back closer to the music he heard growing up before, like many perhaps, rejecting it. This album clearly embraces that and though tagged as Americana is inspired clearly by a love of honky-tonk and the country storytelling that continued to resonate with him.
Keith produced and mixed the album at the Bomb Shelter in Nashville, using some sympathetic and talented players in the process, that included Steven Daly on multiple guitars, Alec Newman on bass and Dave Racine on drums. They were joined on occasion by Billy Contreras on fiddle, Charles Allen Keith on piano and Sol Philcox-Littlefield on additional guitars. Mykele and Jagger Hill added background vocals. The songs are all from Keith, with a number of them being co-writes.
But, as is often the case, it is the music that confirms that Keith is an artist who has made something that will capture attention. Heartbreak Grin for instance has elements in the arrangement that stretch beyond a simply retro recreation, and adds flavours of other influences that blend together well. It also confirms that Keith has a vocal presence that convinces. Having listened to the album many times it still has the capacity to hold your attention with clear melodies and delivery. There is hardly a misstep among the eleven tracks. As in most cases there are tracks that become favourites and familiar. Only Time (“the only time that I ever got it right”), the more twang-laden Right As Rain, the Western themed Brackish Waters, with its effective mix of acoustic and electric guitars or the heartbreak of the title track.
Keith also avoids the more usual, and not entirely unwanted, trait of taking the songs into a hard and fast mode. Overall the pace is more even and considered, allowing the songs to find their own pace and personality. It is entirely rewarding in its execution, demonstrating that Trever M Keith is a songwriter who has undoubtedly much more to offer this particular genre. He is capable of finding a way to reinterpret the past that also incorporates what he has encountered in his career, but never leaving you in doubt as to where the heart and soul of this album lies.
We may have a collective need to drink from a poisoned well, as there may be few other options in life for many. Yet here the wellspring is something that few should refuse to sample, and who would not feel a sense of refreshment from its, at times, brackish waters, yet end up feeling right as rain.
Stephen Rapid
Hill Country Revival A Place Much Better Self-Release
Five-piece band Hill Country Revival have been touring their native Texas for the best part of a decade, establishing themselves as a well-respected and hard-working roots and red dirt country outfit. The current band members are CJ Simmons (vocals), Colton Steiber (lead guitar), Ben Greene (pedal steel), Jacob Bernal (bass), and Josh Brown (drums), and A MUCH BETTER PLACE follows on from their 2024 EP SOUTHERN RAIN. The new album was recorded at Yellow Dog Studios in San Marcos, Texas with Grammy-nominated David Percefull at the controls.
The album kicks off with a short one-minute-long instrumental, The Grave of Arch Stanton, who, depending on whose account you believe, was either an American Civil War hero or a notorious Texan outlaw. In contrast to that relaxed opener, Pump Jack, the first single from the album, enters gritty southern rock territory, telling of the attraction of home comforts after a gruelling tour.
Gone For Weeks is a ragged bluesy affair with clever wordplay reflecting life on the road and the inherent lures that go with that territory (“Well the biker in the cut said I’m moving awfully slow / Says he got something that makes wanna get up and go / He swears he rode in from the Rockies without a wink of sleep / I’ve got the good stuff boy it’ll keep you up for weeks”).
Another road song and a regular in the band’s live shows, The Highway Song, written by Kat Hasty, is classic outlaw country and an album highlight. Isabell Cranfill shares lead vocals with Simmons on Hill Country Fire, which confronts the dilemma of long-term relationships against the draw of the touring musician’s nomadic lifestyle.
There’s lots to like about High Country Revival's latest album. They’re not attempting to reinvent the wheel, simply doing what comes naturally to them and doing it very well.
Declan Culliton
Lindsay Lou Bluegrass Women Work of Bart
As the album title implies, Lindsay Lou’s latest recording was written, recorded, performed and produced by women in bluegrass. The album is paired with a four-part mini-documentary, a decade-long ambition of Lou's, that delves into women’s involvement in bluegrass and old-time music, often erased from history in predominantly male-dominated genres. Both the album and the documentary were co-produced by Lou and Shani Gandi (Kacey Musgraves, Sierra Hull, Miranda Lambert, Sarah Jarosz).
The contributors include the cream of bluegrass women players who have been leading lights in the genre in recent years and in previous decades. Lindsay Lou takes lead vocals and guitar in the recordings that took place in Sound Emporium Studio B and Parlor Productions in Nashville. A key indicator of the project's support was the number of players who worked on the recordings. Joining Lou in the sessions were Alison Brown, Molly Tuttle, Hasee Ciaccio, Laurie Lewis, Tatiana Hargreaves, Bronwyn Keith Hynes, AJ Lee, Gena Britt, Willa Frank, Sierra Hull, Allison de Groot, Emma Rose, Courtney Hartman, Brittany Haas, Phoebe Hunt, Maddie Witler, Jeni Lyn Gardner, Sally Van Meter, and Aoife O’Donovan.
Collectively they breathe new life into compositions written by women, but primarily recorded by male artists. The inclusions honour deceased women
Elizabeth Cotton (Freight Train), Hazel Dickens (Won’t You Come And Sing For Me), Ola Belle Reed (I’ve Endured, High On A Mountain), Ma Rainey (CC Ryder), Rosa Lee Watson, wife of Doc Watson (Your Lone Journey), Kate Wolf (Like A River), Dorothy Scaggs (All I Ever Loved Was You), Jean Ritchie (Jubilee) and Joyce Morris (I Only Exist).
Despite the album title, the material is more than simply bluegrass and includes excursions into old-time, gospel, blues and traditional folk. It’s also refreshing to enjoy songs traditionally recorded by male vocalists with female lead and backing vocalists.
More than simply a tribute project, the album, in conjunction with the documentary, sets the record straight regarding the influence that many women, as players and writers, had, despite not receiving their just rewards in their own lifetimes. Thankfully, the players and writers on this record are reversing that injustice and highlighting how women are finally getting close to the industry exposure they so richly deserve.
Declan Culliton
The Family Delusions of Grandeur Big Black Cow
Almost six years after its completion at Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR has finally been released. The journey from inception to recording and recording to signing to a record label plays like a movie script and, fortunately, one with a happy ending.
The Family is internationally acclaimed artists Dylan LeBlanc, his father James, who is a songwriter and session player at Fame in Muscle Shoals, James’ wife and Dylan’s stepmom Angela Hacker, who is also a songwriter and vocalist at Fame, and Angela’s son and Dylan’s stepbrother Bay Simpson, who is a member of country rock band Outlaw Apostles.
When Dylan was booked, pre-COVID-19, to play a solo show in Huntsville, he invited the family members to join him onstage, the first time all four had performed in public, unaware that the gesture would be the catalyst for a much bigger picture. Rodney Hall, who owns Fame Studios, came to the show and suggested that the family members should consider recording an album together. Ironically, the arrival of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns left all four family members with time on their hands and Fame Studios available due to pandemic-related cancellations.
Each member of the family was involved in the songwriting, and with the input of producer and close friend Brad Crisler, the nine tracks were recorded with a consistency that flows seamlessly from start to finish, no easy task given the input from four individual artists.
The sound is very much retro 70s roots/rock, shifting from the driving rhythms of Pick Your Poison with its killer riff and gorgeous harmonies – features that recur with regularity across the album – to the doom-and-apocalypse tale The End, with its nod toward Steely Dan. Dylan released the former, billed as Dylan LeBlanc and Family, to such enthusiastic reception that he then considered releasing the rest of the material that had been gathering dust for five years without a record label's support. Enter another family member, Jesse Walker, who is married to Dylan’s twin sister and founder of Big Black Crow Records, who offered to release the album on his label.
By their own admissions, Dylan, James and Angela have overcome their own battles with alcohol and substance abuse, and Everybody Loves You Know drills into the seedy world of struggle and abandonment. Those emotional contours and dark melancholy are recounted in The Dealer. Much more than a harmony singer, Angela’s lead vocals shine brightly on the hook-laden The History Of Things To Come.
How DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR came to fruition is an incredible story, but it’s also so much more than that. Once you get your head around the history of the record, the mellow harmonies, electric textures, rugged vocal deliveries and, particularly, the quality of the songs hit hard, leaving a lasting impression that there’s lots more to come from this family going forward. Let’s hope so.
Declan Culliton
Bronwyn Rattlin’Bones Jalopy
Grammy-winning and two-time IBMA Fiddle Player Of The Year Bronwyn Keith- Hynes has (if you’ll pardon the pun) added another string to her bow with her third album, RATTLIN’ BONES. Her instrumental debut album FIDDLER’S PASTIME (2020) was followed four years later by I BUILT A WORLD, a covers album that introduced Bronwyn as an accomplished vocalist as well as a musician. Her latest album is Bronwyn's first venture into songwriting, with all thirteen tracks either self- or co-written.
The demise of Molly Tuttle’s band Golden Highway, of which Bronwyn was a member, may have given her the nudge to branch out on her own as a band leader with her self-described outlaw bluegrass band, which includes some of Nashville’s finest bluegrass players, including mandolinist Tristan Scroggins, banjoist Frank Evans, bassist Larry Cook and guitarist Grant Dresnok.
Blending traditional bluegrass with jamgrass elements, the material on this album is tailor-made for the live setting.
The album title is taken from the super lively opening track Sticks and Stones (“Sticks and stones / burning down the highway / rattling bones / I don’t need no heartache / I’ve been gathering a whole lotta sticks and stones”), which came to mind one night while Bronwyn was struggling to sleep in a tour van on a particularly bumpy ride.
Harder hitting in lyrical content, Johnny Ray addresses addiction and loved ones who lost their way, unable to exorcise their demons. With a sing-along chorus, slick dobro by Jerry Douglas and a killer fiddle break, it’s one of the many standout inclusions. Returning to a more upbeat theme, the fiddle-driven Virginia Gal is a semi-autobiographical tale, with some similarities to Bronwyn’s life story as a travelling musician but with the addition of the protagonist’s flirty disposition (“She’ll play you every tune she knows / if she likes the way you smile”).
Anyone familiar with Gallatin Road in Nashville will be mindful of the non-stop traffic, drug stores, charity shops, fast food outlets and used tyre units that seem to repeat every couple of miles on the road’s ten-mile stretch. It’s now got a song written about it by Bronwyn and co-writer Pat McLaughlin (Alan Jackson, John Prine, Bonnie Raitt, Nanci Griffith), titled Gallatin Road. A laid-back, swampy mid-tempo inclusion, it’s one of a number of co-writes with McLaughlin and features guest vocalist and Nashville resident Timbo.
Another Pat McLaughlin co-write is the gorgeous and dreamlike country ballad Rainbow Trout, which particularly emphasises Bronwyn’s talents as a writer, vocalist and musician. While fantasising about a carefree world, it also rejoices in the present and the positivity of living it. It’s one of two tracks, Hold Me Down being the other, where her husband Jason Carter adds backing vocals.
It’s fair comment that there is not anything approaching a filler in RATTLIN’ BONES' thirteen tracks. With Bronwyn working in the studio alongside such talents as Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton, Frank Evans, Jeff Picker, Harry Clark, Frank Rische, Dominick Leslie, Miles Miller, Wesley Corbett, Dennis Crouch, Tristan Scroggins and others, the musicianship was always going to be of the highest standard. However, the album is much more than that and best described as a ‘coming of age’ project by Bronwyn, firmly establishing her as a complete musician, vocalist and songwriter and no doubt paving the way for a hugely rewarding and successful career as a band leader going forward. A delightful listening experience.
Declan Culliton
Audrey Spillman Nightingale Self Release
This new album from Audrey follows the superbly crafted Neon Dream which was released back in 2021. That record may have passed folks by, seeing as it was victim of the Covid years, when everything was focused on more fundamental issues of safety and survival. However, that debut still carries great resonance and sounds so rich and rewarding in both the musicianship and the writing.
On this new album, Audrey includes the input of new musicians, with Juan Solorzano (guitar), Lex Price (bass), and Cole Hubbard (keyboards), joining both Dan Mitchell (piano and keyboards), and Neilson Hubbard (drums), who played such influential roles on the debut album. They are all joined by Garrison Starr, Mindy Smith, Neilson Hubbard and Natalie Hemby on backing vocals. Once again, husband Neilson Hubbard produced the album, and Audrey wrote all ten songs, including eight co-writes.
The imagery of water is very strong on the album with opening track Sirens conjuring up the beautiful women from Greek mythology. Who would not be entranced by their presence and their seductive song? The following track is Run River Run and it is a song about seeking redemption. I think it’s true to say that religion plays a very big role on this project, with Audrey speaking of a return to her church and an abiding faith. This theme continues in the song Southern Cross and a desire to have faith in religion as a form of salvation “Holy water, Rain on me, Bring me back to sanity, Jesus take me off this Southern Cross. “
Similarly on the song Three Generations the chain that links family together over the decades is examined and the strength to pass down the Christian message is seen as the glue in keeping everything together. Again, there is a strong religious tone running through the words “Three generations / River salvation / Another branch on God’s Family tree.” Water and religion mix again on the song Oh Lord which features Garrison Starr on vocals. “Waters on the rise / Coming in with the tide / Driven by a greed / And they ain’t gonna let us go.” Audrey reaches out to her chosen God “Oh Lord open my heart / Don’t let ‘em take / The best part of me.”
Elsewhere, her vocals really soar on the song Keep On the Move with the need to keep the devil behind you something that provides a sharp focus “Keep reaching for the truth / It’s reaching for you / You got a room with a view in Heaven.” The title track features Mindy Smith on harmony vocals and Nightingale is a song about letting go of expectations in the hope that love and a relationship can work out.
Meet Me At A Dive Bar may seem thematically to be out of place, but it has a superb slow melody, and the harmony vocals of Audrey and guest John Moreland are just the right side of sweet yearning. Find My Way To You is a love song that vows to keep the bond of love strong. It could be seen as a song to her husband, or equally a song to her religious beliefs in the love of her God “I can get so lost sometimes, Caught up in a wandering mind, When all along one thing was always true, I will always find my way to you.” Either way it’s a sweet song that holds the attention.
Brighter Day concludes the album on a note of optimism for the future and a hope in the redemptive qualities of faith “There’s no score that can’t be settled / And no scar that won’t be healed / There’s no sin carries a burden / That redemption will not mend.” The born-again feel to these songs has a strong presence, almost like being re-baptised in the water. Audrey sings with a clarity and confidence throughout and the musicians play in a very understated way in support of the songs. Impressive.
Paul McGee
George Mann and Si Kahn Mayday! Self Release
There is a subtitle on this album that states “Songs to Keep Our Hearts Steady and Strong for the Fight.”
On Going Going Gone, a song that dates to 1991, the lyric talks of putting the White House up for sale “What am I bid for the White House / Come on now don’t be slow / They turned against the people / So they’ll just have to go.” Interesting that the song was originally in protest to the George H.W. Bush administration. It very much looks like nothing has changed thirty-five years later. Another song, Hard Times, dates to 2003 and it begins this album with a damning statement “It’s hard to watch the bastards smile / As they tear the constitution down.” Again, this could be a comment for our present times.
Si Kahn is a civil rights campaigner, in addition to his output as a lyricist and a writer. He has fought tirelessly for the rights of the ordinary worker while producing over fifteen albums of songs, often covered by other artists. On this new album he is joined by George Mann, himself a union organiser and musician who has worked with Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton, among many others. Together they form a strong team to speak out against injustice and the malaise of our times across the ten songs included here.
The project was produced by George Mann and Will Russell engineered at Electric Wilburland Studios at Newfield, New York. There is a list of thirteen musicians that played on various tracks, in addition to Si Kahn (vocals, acoustic guitar), and George Mann (acoustic guitars). The album is a passionate cry for people to rise against what is wrong in our societies, to question the abuse of power at every turn, and to strive for a better tomorrow.
The current incumbent in the White House is called to task on a few of the tracks, with titles like Anyone Can Be President and the hilarious Ask the Penguin, Ask the Seal. The latter song features very clever words surrounding tariffs, among other things, performed by the voices of Magpie and the melody is the timeless ‘Ode To Joy’ by Ludwig van Beethoven. The other stand-out song is The Gap and a dissection of the salaries paid to many CEOs in the USA, again, a song that is equally relevant today; the original dating back to a 2004 album released by Si Kahn.
Praise of the contribution made by immigrants is honoured on Stranger In This Land, which is a simple acoustic guitar and vocal, performed with great reverence by Si Kahn. The message to care for each other and to help those in need is perhaps the strongest take-away, with the song Care For All asking that we always try to answer the call. One Voice may be more an aspiration than a practical reality, with Mayday seen as a distress signal, as society simply tries to muddle through challenging times. The album is very enjoyable, with a great production sound and some fine musicianship.
Paul McGee
Sophie Moore Trouble In Mind Self Release
This album is very much in the arena of the contemporary singer songwriter, with the content rooted in relationship vagaries and life lessons to be held close. The opening song Closer Than is something of a self-made mantra as the words urge to live life without fear “Don’t stop taking chances / Don’t be afraid of the cost / Live the stuff of dreams before the time is lost.”
Perhaps a career as a professional therapist is bound to spill into the subject matter of these self-penned songs, and this album is a return to the music business for Sophie Moore after a long hiatus. She calls upon the skills of Mark Nevers as producer and his work with Lambchop is well respected. The use of horns is something that brings new colours and some variety to the album and songs like All the Small Secrets contain a Bossa nova swing in the melody that fits perfectly around the playing of Roy Agee.
The song The Real Thing is sent out to a child who is looking to find a way in the world, perhaps leaving home for the first time, with the love of a mother reflecting “So go on out into the world / Find a match for your sweet heart.” The hope for love is also an aspiration on the song When the Storm Breaks, and elsewhere, Sophie asks if life was like a story book, would we then be happier, If the World gently asking that we just enjoy the moment and the company of others.
With a vocal tone that is both melancholic and warm, Sophie displays a maturity that is gained from experience and reflections on matters of the head and heart. Different Now has a soulful groove and picks up on this very topic, with the benefit of hindsight giving us a different perspective on things that happen in life. Trouble In Mind has the studio players very much in service of the song and Tony Crow (keyboards, piano), Paul Niehaus (electric guitar, lap steel), and William Tyler (guitar), Joe Westerlund (drums) excel, as they do across all the tracks included.
The PR sheet describes Sophie Moore as providing a style of UK alt-country, but I beg to differ. The sophisticated sound and vocal delivery is very much that of adult contemporary songwriting and very good it is too.
Paul McGee