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Nathan Holscher: Hit the Ground

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Ragged and moody singer-songwriter Americana

Nathan Holscher is proof that you needn’t be in Nashville or Austin to produce Americana. Holscher grew up and was schooled in the Midwest, and after bouncing around the Southwest ended up in Cincinnati, a city long ago known for the hillbilly records issued on the King label. Roy Rogers was born in Cincinnati, and Pure Prairie League formed in Columbus, but more recently the Queen City has turned out soul acts such as Bootsy Collins, the Isley Brothers and Afghan Whigs, and garage/indie rock from the Greenhornes and Heartless Bastards. So it’s without a lot of recent local roots music history that Nathan Holscher drops his third full-length album, populated with dark, downtrodden country and folk songs.

These songs are more anguished than those on two previous outings, 2004’s Pray for Rain and 2007’s Even the Hills. Holscher’s earlier work was agitated and even chipper, but his latest band, Ohio 5, builds more atmospheric arrangements from drums, piano, guitar, bass organ and pedal steel. His ragged vocals sound pained and heartbroken as he catalogs the emotional wreckage of a doomed engagement, with growing doubts strewn along the road trip of “Along the Way.” He tries to prolong broken relationships and on the ‘50s-styled ballad “Only One” hopes for a lover’s change of mind. Holscher sounds crushed as he chokes out an ex-con’s pining on “Seven Years,” and the title track’s frustrated jab at a drug addicted friend feels as fated to fail as the addict himself.

Obviously this isn’t your feel-good album of 2009, but the slow, moody productions provide the right backing for Holscher’s dissipated vocal style. He comes across as intimate and confessional, but he sings as someone exhaling his troubles at the end of a long and trying ordeal rather than as a storyteller trying to make an explicit point. He describes his work as letting “the song steer the ship,” and the results seep out as circumstance rather than drama. It’s precisely that casual reveal of character and storyline that makes this release arresting. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Along the Way
Nathan Holscher’s Home Page
Nathan Holscher’s MySpace Page

The Shants: Russian River Songs

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Ragged Americana from the darkness of a redwood forest

The Shants are a four-piece from Oakland, California, but their down-tempo country-folk isn’t exactly the booming hip-hop sound you’d expect from their urban base. In fact, these tracks were recorded in a cabin near the Russian River, and the first- and second-take demos are rustic and subdued, like the scant, heavily muted light that finds its way to the floor of a redwood grove. Their biography mentions comparisons to Richard Buckner, and they share the sort of minimalism and melancholy Buckner laid down on early albums like Devotion + Doubt. There’s a similar angst in vocalist Skip Allums’ passivity, but he sings with a more dissipated air than Buckner. The productions of vocals, guitar, bass, drums and pedal steel are at once dreamy and eerie; even the album’s love song features the semi-misanthropic sentiment “I’m tired of everyone but you.” An ode to their home town may be a bit ragged for official city adoption, but its shout-out to the Parkway Theater will resonate with those who knew the cozy movie house. The group’s combination of creeping tempos, drowsy vocals and dripping pedal steel gives these recordings an appealing moodiness. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | My Town is Underwater
The Shants’ Home Page
The Shants’ MySpace Page

Mark Lennon: Down the Mountain

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MarkLennon_DownTheMountainCarolinian country-rocker transplanted to California

Mark Lennon is a North Carolina native whose southern roots can be heard in the bluegrass-inflected harmonies of this third release. His adopted Los Angeles has also made an impact on Lennon’s music in the airiness of his melodies and the sunshine of the guitar strumming. His music brings to mind the folk- and country-rock sounds of early ‘70s Golden State transplants like Brewer & Shipley, but also acts like the Amazing Rhythm Aces, Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Grateful Dead. You can also hear the flowing road rhythms of the Allman Brothers in the piano and guitar jam of “What I Could Be With You.” Lennon’s voice bears a strong resemblance to Ryan Adams’; he conjures a modern balance of instruments on the superb “Wildside” by adding horns to piano and acoustic guitar for a duet with Simone Stevens. Lennon has been in California for seven years, but he still considers himself a Southerner, offering up the lovelorn letter of homesickness, “Tennessee.” At twenty-eight minutes this is halfway between EP and album, but all eight songs are solid, so really all you’re missing are the four album tracks that don’t always measure up. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Down the Mountain
Mark Lennon’s Home Page

Mandy Marie and the Cool Hand Lukes: $600 Boots

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MandyMarie_600BootsCountry and rockabilly twang ala Wanda, Merle and Rosie

The Missouri-born Mandy Marie Luke is a country music triple threat: singer, songwriter and ace electric guitarist. Her vocal sass will remind you of Wanda Jackson’s rockabilly sides and her picking will remind you of the Buckaroos’ Don Rich, Merle Haggard’s Roy Nichols and current Telecaster-ace, Bill Kirchen. The combination of singing and picking matches up with another Jackson acolyte, Rosie Flores, and the retro honky-tonk rock and swing brings to mind Dee Lannon. Luke’s debut features ten originals and covers of Jimmie Rodgers’ “Mule Skinner Blues,” Kirsty MacCaoll’s “There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis” (Americanized and shortened to “Thrift Shop”), and the Merle Haggard album track “Harold’s Super Service.”

The originals stick to rockabilly and throwback country sounds. Luke sings with a lot of verve, whether telling the story of a 14-year-old runaway’s renewal, detailing the precarious road run of a drug dealer, or suffering the down-and-out dilemma of Jesus or the bottle. She celebrates truckers and tattoos, and wallows on both sides of cheating mates and broken hearts. Luke picks a storm of twang from her Telecaster, and her Indianapolis-based honky-tonk band rocks each tune as if the dance floor just opened for business. Mo Foster’s upright slap bass complements the drumming of Lewis Scott Jones, and guest player Thom Woodard adds some great old-school steel. If you pine for the hardcore honky-tonk and rockabilly sounds of the ‘50s, be sure to check this out. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Leave Me Baby, Leave Me Be
Mandy Marie and the Cool Hand Lukes’ MySpace Page