TRAiPSiNG THRU the AiSLES: add these to your basket
September 2, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of labor
Hannah Juanita hits all the right notes on her sophomore full-length, a testimonial to the powers of honky tonk music. Few songwriters can cleave so close to the sounds and traditions of country without disappearing into the mythos. With her right hand guitar guy Mose Wilson, and a band featuring names like Chris Scruggs, Billy Contreras, and Dennis Crouch, "Hardliner Blues" is electric with phenomenal guitar picking. The singer warns, Don't fall too hard, boy / 'Cause I won't be there to pick you up. Songs like "Honky Tonkin' For Life" could easily be indulgent filler for other artists, but Juanita performs with both investment and restraint, with a delivery that rivals Emily Nenni or Sarah Gayle Meech. With an impossibly deep duet vocal by Riley Downing, "Granny's Cutlass Supreme" is a fun character piece: Blastin' Tammy Wynette, dancing like the queen of the South / Hose in her hand, Virginia Slim hangin' outta her mouth. Tennessee Songbird succeeds in its directness and simplicity, a tribute to the songwriter herself, pitting good-time novelties like "Loose Caboose" alongside genuinely good songs such as "Fortune" or the title cut, which offers a touch of low-key yodeling and banjo: From deep inside, she's moved to sing / Wants to say out loud she's alive and free. The closer, "Blue Moon" is a lovely, bluesy ballad boasting a world class vocal. Hannah Juanita's dedication to her genre, her love for all things trad, shines through in her songs, on an album that should land her alongside Kaitlin Butts in the conversation about talented revivalists.
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There's nobody named either Wayne or Graham in the lineup of this Kentucky quartet, just a pair of brothers named Kenny and Hayden Miles (along with Ludwig Bauer and Jose Oreta). While they have toured with Tyler Childers and shared a stage with 49 Winchester, they don't share a lot with other acts from their state. Wayne Graham will nevertheless be joining Kelsey Waldon and Ben Sollee at the Commonwealth of Kentucky Party for Americanafest later this month. Their eighth full-length (released on Childers' own label) offers piano-based pop with occasional glints of jazz, and while Bastion opts for a generally organic approach, songs like "We Could've Been Friends" and "Into Words" also incorporate enough studio manipulation to ensure that the Miles Brothers won't soon be mistaken for either Sturgill Simpson or Johnny Blue Skies. While songs like "All the Way" layer acoustic guitar alongside clarinet, atop piano and watery backing vocals, the band's arrangements are kept deliberately to a handful of instruments, and rarely venture beyond the sum of their parts. "A Silent Prayer" adds xylophone and an edgier guitar for a sound like a more contained Wilco: Like Christmas cards, I take up space, symbolic of connection. Both brothers are credited for writing, with both leaning towards more imagistic lyrics, with occasionally veiled observations about their small town Eastern Kentucky upbringing. On the slow and Randy Newman-esque "Shoot Me": Laid up / In stylish / Taxidermy / Sheep and wolves / In harmony / For now. The band is also never hurried to wrap up their songs by the three-minute mark, leaning into a few jammier moments on pieces like "Swingin' 'Round": On a street to the park / Barked dogs follow home / Empty bags dangle low / Swingin' 'round. We've featured "I Had Plans" for a recent What's So Great Episode, a sweet Nilsson-like pop number that could soundtrack a new Peanuts cartoon portraying Charlie Brown at midlife. There are nods to other bands on Bastion, and allusions to inspirations, but Wayne Graham answers to their own muse. Whether they 'fit' or not, we're lucky they're hanging around in our musical neighborhood.
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