Reviews
Artist:Lachlan Bryan and The Wildes Album: As Long As Its Not Us
Label: Social Family
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.lachlanbryanandthewildes.com
As Long As Its Not Us is a hard album to categorise, if categorising is your thing. Lachlan Bryan and The Wildes are rooted in Country and Americana, but the album, which the band describe as a singer songwriter science project, has a pared back sophisticated classic rock feel. Tracks like "Ok to Love" and the title track have a razor sharp nu wave feel with occasional florishes of steel guitar and a Tom Petty twang to the vocals. Everything is warm and understated, "You Remind Me Of Myself" layers delicate guitar and a JJ Cale lofi drum machine to create atmosphere. "I Went Down" and "Quit While We're Ahead" have the feel of a smoother Gothic tinged Nick Cave or some of the throat gravel of 80s Leonard Cohen . The writing on As Long As Its Not Us is classic, cleverly referencing Clouds, Hejira era Mitchell, traditional music and Cohen's galley based immobilisation.
"Never Said A Word" has a bitterness in its recollections, but the vocal and playing is worldly with a dry sophistication that oozes with class, carried on a lightly strummed guitar. Like the best of Joe Henry there is poetry in the sharp measured economy of the writing and arrangement. Perfect too is the blend to "I Found God" which almost feels like a continuation, albeit with the feel of a contemplative measured Nebraska track. The story telling, down home philosophising, the vocal and the playing create a fine atmosphere. "Weighing On Me" and "The Road" continue a quartet of sonically intimate, reflective melancholic ballads, steeped in measured brooding. The spirit of stripped back Springsteen crackles through the tracks. "The Road" with its traditional lyric references has to the finest Country song I've this year. "The Understudy" has the same lyrical references around regret at the end of a relationships, over shimmering guitar, but a rolling drum pattern and beautiful slide raises the temperature and creates tension. "Take It Out On Me" has a Country warm twang with a little Orbison or Wilbury crooning smoothness to it and a radio friendly infectious chorus.
This is an understated, balanced collection, sophisticated with a, little emotional grit. For me literally and metaphorically at the albums core or centre is a run of tracks that lock into that timeless Americana that runs from Springsteen's Nebraska and Tom Joad to more contemporary singer songwriters like Jason Isbell or Jimmy Lafeve
Marc Higgins
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The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.
Pirate is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy
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