ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
July 16, 2023
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
It's just the nature of the business. Seems in many circles Gabe Lee is still a rising artist. Here at R&B HQ, Gabe Lee is risen. Since his 2019 Farmland debut, the Nashville native (his parents are Taiwanese immigrants) has kept his head down, working steadily and taking advantage of the occasional opportunity for exposure. More than anything, Lee has trusted that focusing on his craft, that laboring away as a songwriter will raise his profile. With the subsequent release of 2020's Honky Tonk Hell and '22s Hometown Kid, he's been holding up his side of the bargain, sharing excellent songs like "Eveline", "Imogene", "Rusty". "Emmylou" ... (not all bear peoples' names, but the pattern has not escaped notice), and gradually widening and deepening his sphere of notoriety.
With the release of Drink the River (Torrez Music Group), Gabe Lee takes the next step towards ensuring he'll never need another day job. Richly, economically produced with longtime partners David Dorn and Alex Torrez, the nine-track collection reportedly takes its sonic lead from acts like Nickel Creek, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Steeldrivers, with acoustic accompaniment to the fore and a shade of bluegrass to the country-folk arrangements. This following a more electric approach on those past two projects. At heart are Lee's increasingly confident songs, person-centric stories that rely on the narrative of shared human experience.
The narrator of the title track pledges his heart to the tune of mandolin and acoustic guitar, even as he recognizes all he has might not be enough. Pedal steel completes the arrangement, simple and sweet with a breezy melodicism that turns challenges and setback into homespun sepia-toned snapshots: If faith were a shovel to any man of means / Why am I always standing in dirt up to my knees. Lee's portraits purposefully steer wide of any socio-political posturing a'la Jason Isbell, even as they hint at similar everyday realities. It's why the jet plane engine turning in my head on "Heart Don't Break" seems more bittersweet than threatening. Songs like "The Wild" demonstrate the degree to which Lee has evolved into such a skilled country writer, dropping memorable choruses and surrounding them with music that seems full and purposeful, even without the noise and dynamics of his last couple sessions. If I were heaven-sent / Would I be so hell-bent / On all this misery / Weighing down on me.
Even Gabe Lee's potentially darker numbers land with a certain uplift, whether it's the man challenged with an early dementia diagnosis on "Lidocaine", or the woman in the grips of addiction on the fiddle-driven "Even Jesus Got the Blues". On the former, Eamon McLaughlin's fiddle engages in a call-and-response with Rusty Danmyer's steel guitar, Lee's slightly breathy delivery wringing empathy from the heartfelt lyric: If I'm a different man tomorrow / You be good to that unlucky fool for me. These skills earn Gabe Lee the right to be compared to John Prine at some level, with both writers capable of painting sympathetic characters and handling them with great care.
Drink the River surrounds Lee's talent with tasteful acoustic settings that avoid sounding stale or serving a mere supporting role. McLaughlin's fiddle shines across the album, and the vocal harmonies of Sophie Gault and King Margo's Lucciana Costa are a real complement to Lee's own delivery. The ensemble's updated take on Farmland's "Eveline" breathes new life into the song, and the same can be said for the outfit's approach to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "All I Can Do Is Write About It", the collection's most rocking cut.
Nevertheless, the continued trajectory of Gabe Lee is the primary takeaway on Drink the River. Where Honky Tonk Hell and Hometown Kid sought to inject power and purpose into his work with heavier and more contemporary arrangements, it turns out the power was in Lee's songwriting all along. On the soulful "Merigold", he pleads to god on behalf of a friend with cancer: Lord, if you can hear me / I swear to leave you alone / Please pick up the phone, I want you to know / You can take me when she goes. Gabe Lee is risen. With Drink the River, he is arrived.
ROUTES-cast JULY 16, 2023
- Hailey Whitters, "I'm In Love" I'm In Love EP (Pigasus, Jul 28) D
^ Gabe Lee, "The Wild" Drink the River (Torrez, 23)
- John Prine & Kelsey Waldon, "Love At the Five and Dime" More Than a Whisper: Celebrating the Music of Nanci Griffith (Rounder, Sep 22) D
- Brent Cobb, "Patina" Southern Star (Ol' Buddy, Sep 22)
- Colter Wall, "Little Songs" Little Songs (Black Hole, 23)
- Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, "Every Time I Drink" Sticks and Stones (Ace, 23)
- Morgan Wade, "80s Movie" Psychopath (Sony, Aug 25)
- Ryan Bingham, "Possum Kingdom (ft Texas Gentlemen)" Texas Wild (Lower Colorado, Sep 29) D
- Possessed by Paul James, "See You On Sunday" Fighting For Our Own Survival (Wert, 23)
- Margo Price, "Stranger In a Strange Land" Song For Leon: Tribute to Leon Russell (Primary Wave, Sep 8) D
- Low Cut Connie, "Whips and Chains" Art Dealers (Contender, Sep 8)
- Shinyribs, "Pink Turns To Blue" Transit Damage (Blue Elan, 23)
- Dan Auerbach, "Every Chance I Get" Tell Everybody! (21st Century Juke Joint Blues From Easy Eye Sound) (Easy Eye, Aug 11)
- Allison Russell, "Stay Right Here" The Returner (Fantasy, Sep 8)
- Bonnie Prince Billy, "Crazy Blue Bells" Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You (Drag City, Aug 11) D
- Angie McMahon, "Letting Go" Light Dark Light Again (Gracie, Oct 27) D
- Mipso, "The Numbers" Book of Fools (Mipso, Aug 18)
- Gregory Alan Isakov, "Appaloosa Bones" Appaloosa Bones (Dualtone, Aug 18)
- Cordovas, "High Roller" Rose of Aces (ATO, Aug 11)
- SUSTO, "Mermaid Vampire" My Entire Life (New West, Jul 28)
- Erin Rae, "Passing Through (ft Seth Martin)" Said the Firefly to the Hurricane: Celebration of the Ouevre of Kevn Kinney (Tasty Goody, Nov 24)
- Mikaela Davis, "Cinderella" And Southern Star (Kill Rock Stars, Aug 4)
- Logan Ledger, "Where Will I Go" Golden State (Rounder, Sep 8)
- Sonny & the Sunsets, "Pink Cake" Self-Awareness Through Macramé (Rocks in Your Head, Aug 25)
- Roselit Bone, "Crying in the USA" Ofrenda (Get Loud, Aug 25)
- Tre Burt, "Kids In tha Yard" Traffic Fiction (Oh Boy, Oct 6)
- Margaret Glaspy, "Memories" Echo the Diamond (ATO, Aug 18)
- Slaughter Beach Dog, "Float Away" Crying Laughing Waving Smiling (Lame-O, Sep 22) D
- Hiss Golden Messenger, "Shinbone" Jump For Joy (Merge, Aug 25)
- Elizabeth Moen, "I Couldn't Say It To Your Face" For Arthur EP (Moen, Jul 28)
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