Stoney LaRue
Album: Aviator
Label: Blue Rose
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.stoneylarue.com

One of the leading lights of the so called Red Dirt country movement, the Oklahoma-based Texan takes flight on a set of songs that may not spring any surprises, but deliver what it says on the tin with tales of getting lost, finding your way back, running from broken dreams and broken hearts until you realise that running only takes you further from who you are.

One And Only and Golden Shackles get the tempo rolling with steel and fiddles while the two-step 'Til I'm Moving on offers the first of the chorus-friendly crowd stomp-alongs before the guitar-ringing title track's reminiscences of youth's golden days bears witness to his Texas roots.

As such, these pretty much set the blueprint for the rest of the album, shifting from First One To Know's acoustic strum and the drawled country rock of Blending Colors to the tumbling alt-country guitar rock riffing Spitfire, the southern country piano and steel marriage of Still Runnin' and the Texicali border twang that distinguishes Million Dollar Blues and Dark Side of the Line. The latter's the official closing number, but the deluxe version comes with two bonus cuts, keening old-school country ballad Natural High (For Merle Haggard) and Studio A Trouble Time Jam, a track that sees the band just cutting loose in the titular Nashville studio and should serve as recommendation to catch the man live should he ever find himself in your neck of the woods

Mike Davies