Ian Noe’s debut album was a stunning collection of songs detailing life and hardships in his native Kentucky, delivered with true passion. Drawing from illustrious predecessors such as John Prine and The Band, Between The Country announced Noe as the new kid on the Americana block. Now, River Fools & Mountain Saints cements this reputation as Noe delivers another excellent set of down-home, country-curdled tales in best singer songwriter fashion although several songs are given fuller arrangements than those on the debut album. At its core however, Noe’s acute storytelling remains the focal point. He’s still singing about Kentucky and its people, be they elderly Vietnam veterans or youngsters high on bathtub gin.
The album kicks off with Pine Grove (Madhouse) a country rocker crossbreed of The Rolling Stones and The Burritos with spiralling pedal steel and honky tonk piano prevailing. It’s like spring break in Kentucky with the protagonists shucking all thoughts of work as they are hell-bent on having a good time. It’s almost the most raucous song on the album, eclipsed only by the barnstorming rock’n’roll holler of POW Blues which is reminiscent of Creedence Clearwater’s Vietnam song, Fortunate Son. Strangely enough, Creedence are mentioned in the album’s second song, River Fool, an excellent high and lonesome bluegrass ballad about a man content to live with nature and occasionally strum some CCR on his guitar. As good as the two rock’n’rollers mentioned above are, the rippling mandolin, flailing fiddle and all round musicianship on River Fool is Noe at his best and, happily, there are several excellent offerings here.
Lonesome As It Gets and Strip Job Blues both find Noe in John Prine country, both of them excellent blue collar sing-along’s with freewheeling instruments picking and strumming along all the way. Tom Barrett has some more heft, courtesy of pummelling percussion and roaring organ, as Noe delivers a portentous Pekinpah like road movie about a character who once was “a killing man, from the 21st platoon,” haunted by memories and condemned to ride the highways. Stripped back to the basics, just guitar and a mournful organ, Ballad Of A Retired Man refers to another war veteran, this time at the end of his days – his memories, good and bad, all recollected.
Harking back to the debut album, Mountain Saint is quite magnificent. The band huddle into an intricate mix of piano and pedal steel on a song which has a spritely step to it despite the grim details within. Meanwhile, Burning Down The Prairie is a Dylan like apocalyptic rant which is given a powerful performance. Noe closes the album with two reflective numbers. Appalachia Haze ripples with delightful and adventurous pedal steel as Noe recounts tales of a local flood, a topic revisited on the closing Road May Flood. This is a fine valedictory as he flows gently from his initial acoustic telling until the song expands, much as a river bursts its banks, with strings flowing and Noe eventually singing, weirdly enough, some verses from Bonnie Tyler’s It’s A Heartache. Very strange but it works.
Overall, River Fools & Mountain Saints might not have the revelatory powers of Between The Country but it’s just a smidgeon away and, in its own right, a great album. It certainly allows Ian Noe to sit atop the new wave of Americana singer songwriters.