March was an embarrassment of riches for fans of country music, folk, bluegrass, roots-rock and so on. New albums from Will Stewart, The Seldom Scene, Alison Krauss, and Cash & Skye probably deserve a spot below, but you have to stop somewhere. Scroll on for some fuzzed-out country, unearthed fiddle tunes, radio-ready Americana, and booze-soaked honky-tonk, plus a heartfelt farewell from a Texas legend. Enjoy!
. 00:10 / 00:58 All we really know about Easy Sevens is that it’s Will Boone’s project and it’s based in Houston, Texas. We don’t know for sure who wrote the fuzzed-out country songs on Guitar Music, though Will is probably a good guess. We don’t know who played the pitch-perfect pedal steel guitar that drips off these tunes. Maybe it was Boone or one of his buddies. And we don’t know who decided this album should sound like it was recorded through the grimy floor of a well-trodden honky-tonk. Whoever it was made the right call: This is country music from the deep underground.
. 00:10 / 00:58 Thing I learned today: Tobacco City is not a nickname for a town in Kentucky or North Carolina. It’s what they call Plovdiv, Bulgaria, where abandoned tobacco warehouses are a prominent part of the downtown. Then there’s Tobacco City, a band from the Windy City (Chicago, not some other windy city) that earned some solid buzz off 2023’s Tobacco City USA. Only you can decide if its follow-up is better, but I can tell you that Horses is packed end to end with pristine, slightly psychedelic country soul that twangs like the old days and unfolds slowly, like smoke billowing down the hallways of your mind.
Kinky Friedman was a writer and storyteller, an activist and politician, a native of Chicago, and a (nearly) lifelong Texan. But he was first widely known as a songwriter way back in the 1970s, when he toured with Bob Dylan and performed on the second season of “Saturday Night Live.” In June of last year, Friedman died of Parkison’s disease, but not before recording his final album, Poet Of Motel 6, which finds him in a reflective place, spinning tender stories about love and loss against Tejano-flavored country-folk tunes. “I’ve got no time for dreamin’, I’ve got no time to play,” he sings. “I’ve just got time to follow you down this ol’ highway.” Happy trails, Kinky.
This little EP is credited to Sarah Noell, but, as the Bandcamp page says, “Good Dog is a collection of songs from Sarah Noell & Joe Hayward’s band Good Dog.” That’s important information because it introduces us to Hayward, who provides key elements—pedal steel swoons and banjo plink-plunks—that give these five songs their country charm. As for the songs themselves, they were written by Noell, and they sparkle and soar with ease, like a mid-fi Kacey Musgraves. Beautiful stuff.
This month’s Best Album Title award goes to this, the debut full-length from Oakland-based quartet The Ugly. One More Couple Of Beers boasts 12 tracks of high-octane honky-tonk that feels fortified by the California sunshine and soaked overnight in lost love and liquor. This is a country band that sings about country-band things; song titles include “Time To Start Drinkin’,” “Too Many Exes,” “Man At The Bar,” “I Knew She Was A Cheater,” and, of course, “UFO.” Think Buck Owens with a sharper mean streak and a surfboard and you’re in the right dive bar. Next round’s on The Ugly!
Happy birthday to Justin Wells’ wife Andrea, who was born on February 20, the same day her husband released his new album Cynthiana. It’s inspired by her, Wells says, and it’s as much a bluesy roots album or a rootsy blues album as it is a country album. But the lines between all those styles are pretty blurry, as you know, and Wells seems more focused on writing open-hearted lyrics and memorable melodies than sticking to any particular lane. “I hope you hear a very human voice singing about very human things,” he has said. Mission accomplished.
After John Hartford died in 2001, his family and friends discovered thousands of unpublished fiddle tunes in his archive. The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project is recording a bunch of ‘em, with help from top-shelf players in the world of acoustic music, including bassist Missy Raines, cellist Natalie Haas, and banjoist Alison Brown. Among the 18 tracks here, you’ll find traditional bluegrass, melancholy ballads, lively Celtic reels, stately waltzes, some clogging, and enough instrumental beauty to power an army of old-time string bands.
The beauty of Them Coulee Boys is that even when you’re listening to their recorded work, they sound live and loose like the whole thing might tumble apart in less capable hands. On the Wisconsin five-piece’s fifth album No Fun In The Chrysalis, producer Brian Joseph, a Grammy winner known for his work with Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens, captures this quality perfectly; the result is you feel like you’re standing among Them Coulee Boys as they traipse from bluegrassy jam to shaggy folk-rock to atmospheric Americana. No matter what they’re up to, they’re fun.
When we last checked in with Fust, it was to praise the “warm, weary country-rock songs” on their 2023 debut album, Genevieve. Now, they’re back with Big Ugly, an 11-track collection of Southern indie rock that feels like a full, deep breath, drawing in glimmers of hope to chase away the persistent melancholy. The band as a whole is a hushed wonder, and songwriter Aaron Dowdy has a way of singing about life’s little (and big) challenges and making them feel real and relatable but also like you’re hovering above it all. If only you were…
Garrett T. Capps released a great album last fall that I thought was a bit too space-jam-rock ‘n’ roll for this here roundup of country records. Not even five months later, the out-there Texan is back with a surprise release that reins in his cosmic predilections in favor of some brawny ‘n’ brainy twang. Capps fell from the same tree that produced Tom Petty and the Drive By Truckers, and he’s a master of plainspoken wisdom: “Life is strange,” he sings in the title track, “but it’s cool.” You could say the same about Garrett T. Capps.
Seattle has a reputation as a rainy place, and it is. But summers there are glorious: comfortably warm, crisp air, and (most of the time) sunny blue skies. Racyne Parker’s brand of cinematic Americana music feels similar: It is open and inviting, meticulously crafted, ultra-melodic and uplifting. Will You Go With Me? is a set of songs about small towns, big dreams, self-discovery, and tackling life head-on, and it’s about as radio-ready as roots music gets. It would be unfair to predict a blindingly bright future for Parker—like her fellow Washingtonian Brandi Carlisle, perhaps?—but it’s not hard to hear the potential, either.
You do not need Best Country Music on Bandcamp to tell you that Jason Isbell has a new album out. Plenty of other places will tell you that. They tell you that because the guy is one of the great songwriters going right now, and Foxes In The Snow is unadorned proof. His band, the 400 Unit, is nowhere to be found; it’s just Isbell, an acoustic guitar, and his songs. That’s a recipe for some easy-on-the-ears listening.
As we regularly remind you, this column takes a broad view of the term “country.” Still, Aux Meadows’ Draw Near must be the first album to appear in this column with a statement like this in the credits: “Everyone plays a synth on track eight.” Said track, “Clear A Path,” is a softly pulsing ambient piece that is not very country, but the rest of these tunes are Grade A cosmic twang built from bent strings, undulating tones, wandering pace, desolate vibes, and a thin coat of moon dust. This is music that stretches all the way to the horizon and beyond.
