photo by Will Byington

ROUTES & BRANCHES

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

October 7, 2018

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

I harbor political opinions as much as the next guy, though I've never seen R&B as the best place to disseminate them.  I'm not trying to hide anything.  You shouldn't turn to the Nation for your music news any more than you should look to your favorite music blog (ie, R&B) for your socio-political bearings.  Between you and me, if I were to oversimplify my political stance, however, it might distill to respect, communication and decency.  Bumper stickers should be issued.

While I'm at it, I'll remind folks that I'm not a fan of "protest" music, per se.  Most of it is overly time-bound, and it tends to serve lyrics at the expense of music.  On the other hand, I do want the music I share to be relevant, however you choose to define that.  About a year ago I tacked Lee Bains III & Glory Fires' Youth Detention atop my favorites list for 2017, a record that is largely political opinion pieces set to music.  But it's relevant, as it is a pure and natural extension of our immediate cultural milieu.  I would place Will Hoge's new My American Dream collection atop that same high shelf.

A couple months ago, a Rolling Stone interview with Eric Church set the country genre's mainstream audience ablaze when the superstar hinted at a more reasoned approach to dealing with the NRA.  Will Hoge won't be wooing any of that crowd back into the fold with his new collection, one which points fingers and names names.  It's true that he's earned a reputation as a bard of the working class (the small town thing), but Hoge has been no stranger to crossing lines of controversy (see esp. 2004's America EP or 2012's Modern American Protest Music).

There are demons haunting the opening cut, "Gilded Walls".  Beneath the steady stomp sirens wail, thunder rolls and otherworldly growls push back against the thick gale of guitar feedback.  The storm heralds the arrival of what is as angry a record as we're bound to hear this year.  Will Hoge shouts his lyrics, recognizing that sometimes it's just good for the soul to incite rather than to invite.  Sometimes we just need a good, cleansing primal scream.

Hoge's first volley was launched about a year ago with the caustic "Thoughts & Prayers", a deceptively acoustic onslaught that takes to task public figures who respond to mass shootings with little more than warm feelings:  As long as you can keep your re-election bills paid / You're just a whore to the guild that's called the NRA.

My American Dream is a relatively brief eight tracks, pairing a couple formerly released numbers with a handful of new cuts.  "Still a Southern Man" first hit the shelves as a self-standing single in 2015, appearing later as a highlight of Hoge's standout Solo & Live.  Like Lee Bains III, he struggles to embrace his identity while damning the legacy of abuse that plagues the South:  I'm looking away now Dixie / Cause I've seen all I can stand / But I'm still a Southern man.  It's a song and a sentiment that could destroy the careers of most country artists who refuse to step into the fray.  But it seems Hoge has long abandoned any fear of offending the masses.

With the release of last year's Anchors CD, Will Hoge spoke of a crisis of soul searching that led to the sessions.  While recent records had inched him nearer to mainstream success, he sought a more personal grounding for continuing his work.  That rekindling was reportedly inspired in part from watching his kids banging around making their own music in the garage.  With this collection, the writer gives full rein to a thread of conscience that has always run through his career.  There is almost a punk ethos to songs like "Stupid Kids", featuring guitars played with fists and machine gun lyrics as much spat as sung.  It's the album's most positive a call-to-arms:  Turn your music up / Make your own damn songs / You'll know you got it right when all the old white men don't sing along ... Keep doing what you're doing / Keep being stupid kids.

As you might have figured, anger is the pervading sentiment of My American Dream, an unfiltered frustration delivered through powerful vocals and rage-fueled guitars.  Hoge even channels his inner Elvis Costello on "Oh Mr Barnum":  The ringmaster is gone / It's just a clown down here all alone / Oh Mr Barnum won't you please take your circus back home.  Recorded with his touring band, the CD is also sonically solid, far more rock than roll, with any sense of country twang left at the studio door.  Blast "Nikki's a Republican Now" next time you want to clear the honky-tonk.

While Will Hoge presents more problems than solutions, he's not making a case for dismissing the systems upon which our country was built.  The record's packaging includes a copy of the US Constitution.  And while so much rage and fury can risk becoming impersonal, Hoge's American Dream is very much a product of his identity as a father and as a Southern man.  It's not just the most important, personal album of Will Hoge's career.  It might just be the very record we all need to hear this year.  I'm sure at some level he still wants to preach to a larger congregation, but something tells me he'll continue making this music and afflicting the comfortable until the walls come down.

- Elliott BROOD, "Valley Town" Mountain Meadows  (Six Shooter, 08)
- Rev Peyton's Big Damn Band, "Church Clothes" Poor Until Payday  (Family Owned, 18)
- JP Harris, "Sometimes Dogs Bark at Nothing" Sometimes Dogs Bark at Nothing  (Free Dirt, 18)
- Bottle Rockets, "Bit Logic" Bit Logic  (Bloodshot, 18)
- Jason Isbell & 400 Unit, "Cover Me Up (live)" Live From the Ryman  (Southeastern, 18)
- Jamie Lin Wilson, "Run" Jumping Over Rocks  (JLW, 18)
- New Mexican, "Sold it Back" Take It On Our Shoulders  (Hoffman, 18)
- Phosphorescent, "Around the Horn" C'est la Vie  (Dead Oceans, 18)
- Southern Culture on the Skids, "Whole Lotta Things 2018 BC" Bootleggers Choice  (Kudzu, 18)  D
- One Eleven Heavy, "Valley Bottom Fever" Everything's Better  (Kith & Kin, 18)  D
- Hillstomp, "Angels" Monster Receiver  (Fluff & Gravy, 18)
- Ural Thomas & the Pain, "Slow Down" The Right Time  (Tender Loving Empire, 18)  D
^ Will Hoge, "Still a Southern Man" My American Dream  (Edlo, 18)
- Uncle Tupelo, "Fifteen Keys" Anodyne  (Reprise, 93)
- Band of Heathens, "Seems Like I Gotta Do Wrong" Message From the People Revisited  (BoH, 18)
- Pistol Annies, "Got My Name Changed Back" Interstate Gospel  (Sony, 18)
- Adam's House Cat, "Town Burned Down" Town Burned Down  (ATO, 18)
- Nathan Bowles, "Elk River Blues" Plainly Mistaken  (Paradise of Bachelors, 18)
- Philippe Bronchtein, "Home Again" Me & the Moon  (Bronchtein, 18)
- Grace Potter, "I'd Rather Go Blind" Muscle Shoals: Small Town Big Sound  (
- Courtney Marie Andrews, "Heart & Mind" single  (Fat Possum, 18)
- Hayes Carll, "Beaumont" Trouble in Mind  (UMG, 07)
- Larry & His Flask, "Three Manhattans" This Remedy  (Xtra Mile, 18)
- Daniel Romano, "Empty Husk" Finally Free  (New West, 18)  D
- William Matheny, "Christian Name" single  (Misra, 18)
- Neilson Hubbard, "Cumberland Island" Cumberland Island  (Proper, 18)
- Laura Gibson, "Domestication" Goners  (Barsuk, 18)
- Marissa Nadler, "Said Goodbye to That Car" For My Crimes  (Sacred Bones, 18)
- Gillian Welch, "Wayside/Back in Time" Soul Journey  (Acony, 03)

This Episode finds us continuing to embrace Jamie Lin Wilson's star-making turn - one of the year's strongest country statements to date.  We explore One Eleven Heavy, an outfit which brings together Wooden Wand's James Toth with members of Royal Trux and Hiss Golden Messenger.  We also discover Ural Thomas & the Pain, one of those classic soul artists who have spent a career in relative obscurity, despite having shared a stage with James Brown, Merry Clayton and Otis Redding.  And we celebrate the quiet, alluring poetry of Marissa Nadler.