The Railsplitters, The Honeycutters, Ballad Of Crows

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The Railsplitters The Faster It Goes


The Railsplitters are a five-piece string driven crew from Colorado and are yet another band who use traditional instruments but who are bang up to date regarding their song writing. While there’s one traditional song here (Salt, Salt Sea) it’s an ocean away from the gloom of its forebear (The House Carpenter) with a contemporary feel. At times here and elsewhere on the album there’s the impression that we’re listening to musings and notes from singer Lauren Stovell’s diary as she sings about upstart Romeos trying to impress her (You) and a year of romance (Seasons). This is impressive as the majority of the songs are written by the male members of the band, Dusty Rider and Peter Sharpe, both managing well to inhabit the female psyche. Best is Rider’s tale of a young mother clinging to the hope that her husband will return on Met That Day with Stovell at her most plaintive. Currently The Railsplitters are playing their debut UK and Ireland datesand the album is released on July 6th
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The Honeycutters. Me Oh My


From Asheville, North Carolina, The Honeycutters are based around the strong vocals and fine song writing of Amanda Platt. The basic line up of mandolin, pedal steel, guitar, Dobro, bass and drums is enhanced in the studio with keyboards, electric guitar and trumpet leading to a warm wallow in some intricate and finely sketched playing. This is immediately apparent on the lengthy and rather glorious All You Ever which blossoms from its tentative opening with a drumbeat underpinning Platt’s wearied vocal into a full blown pedal steel mandolin and keyboard borne country rock affair. Platt dips into country soul territory on what is the antitheses of Stand By Your Man on the powerful title song as she sings “some girls marry and some girls wait, some girls worry ’bout judgement day, some do better without that ball and chain” while Little Bird is a song that could have been penned by Mary Gauthier and is delivered with the same wearied feel that Gauthier does so well. While Platt stands up for downtrodden women elsewhere (Not That Simple) there are some upbeat moments here with the opening Jukebox a fine slice of honky tonk philosophy while Ain’t It The Truth is a punchy slice of Loretta Lynn styled fight back against all of those rotten men. There’s 14 songs here and everyone is a winner with Platt and the band coming across as ones to watch out for.
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Ballad Of Crows


Back to the UK (and Germany) for this eponymous album featuring Steve Crawford and Pete Coutts along with Sascha “Salossi” Loss. With a sound that fuses classic west coast harmonies with a traditional Scottish feel there’s a temptation to recall the likes of Gallagher & Lyle all those years ago but BOC are rootsier. Crawford and Coutts handle guitar, mandolin, and vocals with Loss adding additional guitar, vocals, bass, fiddle and Sansula (kalimba). With additional texture from guests on fiddle, accordion, cello and slide guitar the album is a well measured collection of rustic notes that certainly grows on the listener with repeated plays; a sweet late night pleasure that might summon up another duo from the seventies, Crosby & Nash. A cover of Tim O’Brien’s Brother Wind begs the comparison but overall the songs, in the main written by Davy Cattanach along with Crawford and Coutts hark back to halcyon seventies days.
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Roots Roundup: The Warren G Hardings, The Railsplitters, Bradford Lee Folk.

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The quality and variety of string band music that arrives at Blabber’n’Smoke varies greatly. In addition it seems everyone in the world (and their brother) has picked up an instrument and released an album and the pending pile here has steadily grown. So to clear the decks an intensive listening session was in order (with appropriate fuel, thanks here to Innis and Gunn) resulting in the following cherry picked recommendations.

The Warren G. Hardings. Get A Life.


Named after the 29th POTUS the Hardings, from Seattle, are very un presidential with their frantic picking and scrubbing on the majority of the songs here. Hi energy bluegrass is the name of the game here with the band touted as similar to Trampled By Turtles although they come across as much warmer and, for want of a better word, authentic, without the jam band tendencies of the Turtles. While they’re able to lay back and deliver the excellent honeysuckled bliss of Anonymous Waltz and The Devil’s In The Roots begins as a gentle tip toed ballad before picking up steam the pell mell attack of the opening numbers, Treehouse and High & Low take the breath away. The playing is top notch with the classic interplay of guitar, mandolin, fiddle and banjo thrilling at times over a solid string bass thump. With a mischievousness apparent in Post Suburban Recession Era Blues (a slacker bluegrass anthem!) they’re at their best on the jitterbug syncopation of What Can I Say?

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The Railsplitters

Hailing from Colorado the four piece Railsplitters initially appear more traditional than the Hardings. Two guys and two gals, they have the rippling mandolin, banjo and piercing fiddle down to a T and add some very sweet pedal steel on several of the songs. The opening song, Jackson Town, hillbillies into view with Lauren Stovall’s vocals well grounded as she praises her hometown while the band slap and pick excellently. Boarding Pass (that’s the way it is) lopes along in a very pleasant fashion with the pedal steel reinforcing the country feel but the following song, My World is nothing less than astonishing. A polished (to a sheen) country pop song that has a driving rhythm with some very fine mandolin playing throughout it’s elevated by an astonishing vocal performance from Stovall while there’s a powerful hook in the chorus almost demanding that the song should be blaring from the radio this summer. Elsewhere they capture a Carter Family wildflower sound on Where You Are while Family Waltz tears at the heartstrings in the best way. There’s a brace of instrumentals on the album allowing the band to show off their chops with Longs Peak a gentrified instrumental that recalls the work of The Nitty Gritty Dirt band on their album Symphonium Dream.

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Bradford Lee Folk and the Bluegrass Playboys. Somewhere Far Away.

Louisiana born, Missouri raised and now resident in Nashville Bradford Lee Folk comes straight out of the traps with a quintessential bluegrass song, Foolish Game of Love, on his album Somewhere Far Away. He really does have a “high lonesome sound” in his voice and the playing here is excellent with the fiddle in particular hauling all sorts of historical baggage as it flails away. If the remainder of the album was similar then it would be well worth listening to but Folk turns out to have the gift of writing what could well be called pop songs played within the bluegrass idiom and on several occasions he reminded me of the early John Hartford, writer of Gentle On My Mind. Folk’s light tenor voice floats over some very fine playing creating an oasis of calm on the wonderful Somewhere Far Away while The Piper swarms with a woody warmth that recalls Michael Hurley. Soil and Clay ends the album on a sombre note as Folk delves into mortality on an impressionistic ballad that is baroque in its twists and turns, almost at times like early Tim Buckley. A great album that deserves to be heard and the pick of the bunch here.

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