ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
September 15, 2019
Scott Foley, purveyor of what-have-you

It happens too often, when a band we love declares its dissolution.  An act we've shadowed since Day 1 cites Artistic Differences, even though their music makes all the difference in the world to you.  From here in the Square State, Arliss Nancy's records brought great joy to our ears.  Their 2012 Simple Machines stood atop my favorite albums list for that year, and subsequent volleys held prominent places as well, Wild American Runners in '15 and 2016's Greater Divides.  Far as I was concerned, their sharp-edged and deep-souled alt.country punk achieved the perfect tension between all these forces at play.

With the Fort Collins band flying the Indefinite Hiatus flag, writer and frontman Cory Call has decamped to Munich, pairing with a couple fellow ex-pats and locals as Little Teeth in an effort to refocus his musical chi.  Redefining Home (Gunner Records, Sept 27) will appease Arliss Nancy fans, even as it extends Call's literate songwriting in a more melodic punk direction.

We got to slow down / No road goes on forever, they all end / But with you I would run thru dark right off its edge he sings on "Western Skies", his distinct voice climbing jagged guitars and dodging primal drums.  The cover of Redefining Home shows a group mounting the stairs onto an airplane, hinting at the record's theme of chasing a dream and finding a new home.  These aren't uncommon sentiments for Call, who has frequently written of community and place, and of his own demons which are never far from the scene.

Bandmate Jason Thompson hails from Chicago's The Sky We Scrape, a band whose heavier guitars and anthemic choruses influence the course of these sessions.  Songs like "Atlanticism" set a powerful sonic stage from which Cory Call launches his vocal to new heights.  He's never been a conventional lyricist, favoring more confessional passages with a literary bent rare for punk writers: Well I try to believe, and I sweat through the sheets / The lonely disposition that keeps following me / I do what I need, I try to stay true to the sound / Because we know it's better when the walls start crashing down.  Like Lee Bains of the Glory Fires, Call can shoehorn more 25-cent words into a lyric than most, but never simply for the sake of making an impression.  His spares no dark detail in laying out his heart:  I know I got a problem with drinking, he shares on "Amphetamine".  I like my amphetamines / If I make it through tomorrow evening / Makes a motherfucking week that I stayed clean.

That genuine tendency comes through most clearly when he reflects on his life as a travelling musician.  From "Sixteen Candles":  All I wanted was just these songs / All I know, nothing ever mattered but these basement shows / Alone and getting hammered with the friends who chose / Music as a better way to make our way out of the fire.  Unlike Arliss Nancy, Little Teeth allow no space for quieter reflection, pounding drums and stabbing guitars setting the pace for every song.  But like early Two Cow Garage or Drag the River, it's not just noise for noise's sake.  There is generous melody to even the darkest tunes.  "Drunk Apostles" recalls Call's formative days, name-dropping tourmates:  Soon I found myself on airplanes / Flying overseas to tour with the MakeWar boys / And occupy an empty seat in tour vans and hostels / Bar rat saints and drunk apostles / And a road that led me home.

At one time, home was the shitty mountain town where I grew up, but his window now frames a very different landscape, one offering new possibilities and wider horizons.  While songs like "Thinning Out" wouldn't sound entirely out of place on Greater Divides, Cory Call has obviously turned a page.  Time will tell if there is a resolution to Arliss Nancy's hiatus, or if that would be reaching into a past that no longer makes sense.  On the punchy "Bender" he sings: Dawn made a break in the West / And it broke the young man's heart / An exit from center stage, final page in an epilogue / Now I'm left to paraphrase a life full of unfinished songs.  For now, Call's voice is well suited for Little Teeth's anthemic punk, stuff that will sound great thundering from a stage or tearing through a car speaker.  Stuff that could pierce your heart if you listen close enough.  Even from the other side of the Atlantic.

But there's a light / It's shining over Little Eden tonight / It's calling us home to a place I know I don't belong anymore / City streets in your mountain town / Well, it's teemed with ghosts / If you're in need of haunting let me know.

- Pernice Brothers, "Devil and the Jinn" Spread the Feeling  (Ashmont, 19)
- Low, "Plastic Cup" Invisible Way  (Sub Pop, 13)
- Angel Olsen, "Lark" All Mirrors  (Jagjaguwar, Oct 4)
- Leif Vollebekk, "Transatlantic Flight" New Ways  (Secret City, Nov 1)
- Jesse Malin, "Do You Really Wanna Know" Sunset Kids  (Wicked Cool, 19)
- Whippoorwill, "Cold Sound" Nature of Storms  (Whippoorwill, Nov 15)  D
- Red River Dialect, "My Friend" Abundance Welcoming Ghosts  (Paradise of Bachelors, Sep 27)  D
- Weakerthans, "Plea From a Cat Named Virtue" Reconstruction Site  (Epitaph, 03)
- Great Peacock, "Cortez the Killer" single  (Peacock, 19)  D
- Erika Wennerstrom, "Louisiana Man (feat. Mercury Rev)" single  (Partisan, 19)  D
- Logan Ledger, "Oh Sister (feat. Courtney Marie Andrews)" I Don't Dream Anymore EP  (Rounder, Oct 4)
- Jeremy Ivey, "Worry Doll" Dream and the Dreamer  (ATO, 19)
- Low Anthem,  "Champion Angel" Oh My God Charlie Darwin: 10th Anniversary  (Low Anthem, Nov 15)
- Cody Jinks, "Think Like You Think" After the Fire  (Late August, Oct 11)
- Lauren Pratt, "Blue Eyes" Young American Sycamore  (Pratt, 19)
- Miranda Lambert & co, "Fooled Around and Fell In Love" single  (Vanner, 19)  D
- Corb Lund, "They're Hanging Me Tonight" Cover Your Tracks  (New West, 19)
- JP Harris, "Early Morning Rain (feat. Erin Rae)" Why Don't We Duet In the Road (Again)  (Demolition & Removal, 19)  D
- Corinne Bailey Rae, "Jersey Girl" Come On Up to the House: Women Sing Waits  (Dualtone, Nov 22)
- Tom VandenAvond, "World Is All Wrong" Common Law  (Hillgrass Bluebilly, 19)
- Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster, "Educated Guesses" Take Heart Take Care  (Big Legal Mess, 19)
- Matt Pond PA, "Sparrows" Dark Leaves  (Altitude, 10)
- Milk Carton Kids, "The Only Ones" The Only Ones EP  (MCK, Oct 18)  D
- Brent Cobb, "Feet Off the Ground (feat. Jade Bird)" single  (Elektra, 19)  D
- Michaela Anne, "I'm Not the Fire" Desert Dove  (Yep Roc, Sep 27)
- Son Volt, "Strength and Doubt" American Central Dust  (Rounder, 09)
- Amy LaVere, "Not in Memphis" Painting Blue  (Nine Mile, 19)
- Dillon Carmichael, "I Do For You" I Do For You EP  (Riser House, Oct 18)  D
- Kelsey Waldon, "White Noise White Lines" White Noise / White Lines  (Oh Boy, Oct 4)
- Castanets, "I'll Fly Away" City of Refuge  (Asthmatic Kitty, 08)

This is where we smash a whole bunch of words together about stuff we've added to our Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster.  I was recently challenged to tell a reader exactly what that meant.  Well, "Your Monster" = your insatiable appetite for new music that matters.  I got one, and this entire blog is predicated on the existence of other folks with a similar craving.  You might, f'rinstance, care that Cody Jinks will be unleashing two (2) new studio projects before the calendar ticks to 2020:  It looks like After the Fire is set for October 11, followed a week later by The Wanting.  Rising star Erin Enderlin has released a trio of EPs in recent days.  She'll be collecting those songs and more on a full-length Faulkner County  (Black Crow, Nov 1).  Square State readers will recognize one-time Patti Fiasco frontperson Alysia Kraft, and maybe even Tobias Bank.  They compose 2/3 of Whippoorwill, who have set November 15 as the arrival date for Nature of Storms.  Milk Carton Kids will soon embark on something they're calling "A Night With the Milk Carton Kids in Very Small Venues at Very Low Ticket Prices Tour".  You'll hear a preview on their October 18 EP, The Only Ones.  We've included a Great Peacock cover on this week's Episode.  Sounds like they're prepping a CD for 2020 release, presently entitled High Wind.  Is there more?  Yes, there's more, so please click the link. 

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