Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats- 170 Russell 30.03.16

Melbourne in March is always a good place to be for live music, Bluesfest in Byron Bay brings a lot of amazing acts to these shores and the good people behind the festival make sure that us folks further south don't miss out. I have heard good things about Nathaniel Rateliff and his band The Night Sweats in a live setting, lots of energy and impeccable playing and I wasn't disappointed last Wednesday night.

Concentrating on the material from his most recent self titled album it was always going to be a barnstorming night of raw sweaty soul and that is what Nathaniel and his band delivered in spades. Leading off with I Need Never Get Old which appropriately kicks off the album, I'm immediately struck by the energy of the band and their consummate playing, they propel Nathaniel and his voice to lofty heights. Look It Here keeps the audience bouncing on their toes before slightly taking the sting out with the superb Howling At Nothing. Wasting Time is a standout track from the album, a slow mournful slice of country soul and live Nathaniel gives a subtle but powerful performance. My favourite track from the album Mellow Out is given an almost Latin feel but still retains that floating groove. Nathaniel is a polished and engaging performer and he is certainly helped out by an incredible array of talent in his band the Night Sweats.

The band also find time to road test two new tracks from their next album, Out On The Weekend is a solid thumping slab of soul and there aren't too many bands who play soul with that level of intensity and passion. Nathaniel then pushes things back up a notch with the stomping Trying So Hard Not To Know before closing the show with the hit S.O.B in a typically rousing rendition. The encore is a terrific cover of the Band's The Shape I'm In breathing life into this old chestnut. This was a great gig getting up for a gig on a work night can be tough but seeing a great band like this makes the effort more than worth it.

The Wild Feathers-Lonely Is A Lifetime

Lonely Is A Lifetime the new album from Nashville based The Wild Feathers sees the band consciously expanding their sound. They sound tight and focused on this record, the benefit of a couple of years of solid touring behind them. Where as their debut sounded like a bit of a mix between the Eagles and The Grateful Dead they have now added a few strings to their bow musically. Their writing has that distinct outsider feel, characters hell bent on self destruction, a sense of loss and a remembrance for the past.

One of the early signs that we are hearing a band starting to gather momentum is on Goodbye Song which takes a part of a leaf from the Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon era and Gene Clark from his No Other period.

Goodbye song is what I sing
Take it as it comes
Cause it don't come easily
All I have is already mine
You got the money, you got the drugs, I got the time.

The defiant Don't Ask Me To Change whilst with a tinge of pop rock anthem surrounding it, swiftly veers away from heading into Matchbox Twenty territory. Happy Again is a bold country rocker, it has a darker take on what some people do to be happy. Leave Your Light On treads on familiar territory, life of on the road and those left behind.

Help Me Out is expansive, solid hooks but never drifting towards safe ground, it has the heaviness of someone carrying the world on their shoulders. This track also features some sterling guitar work from Taylor Burns who is an underrated player. The title track starts of with a doo wop style accapella vocal, the only accompaniment is a haunting acoustic guitar. On My Way is one of the reasons that I love this band, punchy melodic alt country rock with some precise guitar hooks. Overnight is another song that highlights the strength of this band, reminiscing of a happier past and looking for something positive to grab on too, it has some great melodies and harmonies.

Lonely Is A Lifetime is a great step forward for this band their sound continues to develop and their influences are starting to be more diverse, apart from the salute to Pink Floyd on Goodbye Song their are some of the cosmic influences of Gram Parsons on this album.

Lonesome Dreams-Lord Huron

One of those better late than never discoveries, L.A based Lord Huron released this debut set in 2012. It has certain shades of the Fleet Foxes but on closer inspection it has a more grand vista. It's an album with wide open spaces, it almost takes on a visual context when listening to it. Like the Fleet Foxes it's hard to trace a discernible lineage perhaps that is what adds to the immense pleasure of discovering it.

Ends of The Earth has an ethereal feel with layered harmonies and dense instrumentation, main songwriter Ben Schneider creates a vision of a wandering pilgrim searching for all that world offers,

Oh, there's a river that winds on forever
I'm gonna see where it leads
Of there's a mountain that no man has mounted
I'm gonna stand on the peak

Oh there's a land that time don't command
Wanna be the first to arrive
No time for pondering, why I'm wandering
Nowhere the buses lay.

Time To Run has a deliberate urgency, reading like the pages from a western novel a man is on the run and it will all make sense if his love rides off with him into the sunset. Schneider is a great storyteller, his character are vivid with equal measures of desperation with their current situation and a yearning for something that is solid and safe. Lonesome Dreams takes us away to another dimension but all isn't as it seems going through what you once knew can be a lonely trip.

I walk on a winding road
In the deep of the night, near the edge of a knoll
I pass by a moonlit lake
And a cold wind blows and my bones start to shake

And I feel I should know this place
As a road winds on in a wide open space
The wind plays a haunting tune
As I make my way through the night all alone.

She Lit A Fire uses the landscape metaphor for the search for true love, more uptempo with jangling guitars but with those haunting harmonies creating an eerie echo. I Will Be Back One Day is another highlight a cross between REM and Fleet Foxes it has an anthemic feel to it.

Lord Huron have been in Australia this week and I was shattered I couldn't make the gig but by all reports it was a sensational show.

Laney Jones-Laney Jones

This self titled set is the second album from Laney Jones, it's an album with a diverse musical palette and it all marries together with an easy relaxed cohesiveness. Marrying elements of Americana, indie pop and country soul it also harnesses the honesty of the classic late 60's early 70's singer songwriter sound. Having studied her craft at the prestigious Berklee School of Music her writing displays an assured maturity and innate reflectiveness.

The subdued and dream like Do What You Want features acoustic guitar and a delightful weary vocal, it has a disarming sentiment, questioning the point of doing something if it's not what you want to do.

What's the point in living if you can't have any fun
What's the point of heaven if you don't know anyone
So lay with me in the magic
Breathe it in break your habits
Rest a spell then raise some hell

Allston (Dance Around) has a more indie pop influence with a nice opening hook that is pure ear candy drawing you in. Rather than settling into pop mode the song takes on a certain abrasiveness, a rumbling bass underpins everything and there is some great mandolin playing. Bad Luck Charm is a highlight sounds like this could have been recorded at FAME studios a very relaxed southern groove permeates this track. Jones' vocal is a standout she has an ability to deeply inhabit a song and give a suitable interpretation. Here she gives a performance that has a resigned quality to it she is bad luck charm and perhaps quietly revels in it.

Baby I'm a bad luck charm
Hanging round you neck when misfortunes starts
Maybe we are just star crossed lovers
Blessed with the curse we are bound to discover is a sign
Don't need you to be mine.

Who Could Love is breaking ties with the past, and the pain that comes with moving forward. Anchored in uncertainty and looking for acceptance it's a rocky path forward. There is an aching in Jones' vocal and the accompaniment is subtle and restrained. Troubled Mind has a bit of a Dylan influence it rolls along finding comfort in a relationship and banishing a troubled mind. The Simple Truth sounds a little like The Band I can hear Richard Manuel singing this one, it has a melancholy feel. Endless Summer closes the album and in familiar fashion there is a tinge of unpredictability about what lies ahead, we all think at one point those heady days of youth will always remain but they remain fleeting moments.

This album just grows with each listen, it has a lot of diverse elements that just grab you by the ear. I'm sure this album will bring Jones to a larger audience and I hope she tours in Australia in the near future.

Mavis Staples-Livin on a High Note

Mavis Staples has built an impressive solo catalogue working with the likes of Prince, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and now M Ward. Each album has a distinct narrative one cloaked in positivity and the bedrock of gospel that has been her foundation for more than 50 years. Each album especially those with Tweedy focused on giving her vocals plenty of room against a sparse backdrop. M Ward has the same sympathetic nature to her voice but fleshes things out from a music standpoint. Ward has enlisted a stellar cast of songwriters to help Mavis achieve her vision, the likes of Nick Cave, Bon Iver, Benjamin Booker and Neko Case penned tunes specifically for this album

Living on a High Note is part nostalgia trip from her heady days with the Staple Singers and part commentary on the decaying fabric of American society. She is at her commanding best on Action, defiant and spirited in taking matters into her own hands.

Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired
They say my words might get me fired
What a terrifying time to raise our voices
But see I'm not left with many more choices
I gotta put it into action
Doing it A-Z

Take Us Back penned by Benjamin Booker reflects on where Mavis came from and what there is still to achieve. It's about taking stock of the people who are important, it's also about the city of Chicago her home and heartbeat. With a lean penetrating rhythm and a solid floating groove Mavis takes us back to the windy city of Chicago,

Sometimes life can get you in a hurry
I'm just gonna take it slow now
That don't mean I ain't been working y'all
I'm working on me
I'm taking sometime to see the people who keep me going
Sometimes folks can lead you down a bad line
I'm not saying that I'm not judging now
I'm just gonna tell ya what I tell them now.

The gospel infused Love and Trust features some great harmonies, it's a lean and sparse track with Mavis offering some pearls of wisdom but how to find love and trust amidst the chaos and debris. On If It's a Light Mavis' voice is placed front and centre her ability deliver a song with nuance and restraint is amazing. This breezy tune sounds like Chicago soul in it's heyday, mid 1960's with Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions as the city's soul ambassadors. History, Now asks the question what do we do with our collective past and have we learnt any lessons. The highlight of the album is the Nick Cave penned Jesus Lay Down Beside Me, Mavis is in familiar territory with an evocative vocal delivery. M ward shows deft restraint his guitar work channels the unobtrusive style of Pops Staples.

Livin' On A High Note leaves you with a sense of comfort after listening to it, Mavis shares with you a sense of optimism and hope. Mavis has seen it all, the decaying of community and family, the discrimination, the violence and above all the path to acceptance.

Water Liars-Water Liars

Water Liars a three piece hailing from Mississippi harness the ragged edges of rock and roll creating a raw cavernous soundscape that has a distinctive lo fi presence. Looking for a connection I immediately think of the brillant Fading Trails album from Jason Molina's Magnolia Electric Company, it has that same essence of something small but growing beyond it's boundaries to take on another dimension. Lyrically it has that similar feel of desolation and displacement but with a certain graceful sentimentality that gives the album a shade of light.

Cannibal takes on a carnal attitude to relationships, the idea that in something beautiful we find the need to destroy it. We find the need to own it, to abuse it and not appreciate the beauty of it, it's a theme that goes beyond love to our somewhat precarious entaglement with our planet.

When you tatse the flesh of the one that you love
Do you feel like a cannibal, like an animal
Just like a flood
And are you made like a vampire
A walking appetite to destroy

War Paint has a weary sense of resignation, a life where you bet on red but black wins, trading your love and heart for anything else. It sounds a little like Gene Clark from the early 70's vocalist Justin Kinkel-Schuster has a distinctive voice similar to that of the former Byrds vocalist. Swannanoa has a restrained feel and sounds a little like the Felice Brothers, it's a dark tale of addiction, loss and displacement. There is a deep beauty to this song and it shows the maturity in the bands songwriting, never maudlin only wistful and melancholy.

I woke up in Houston in somebody's kitchen
The ceiling was sweating
And I was afloat on a dirty brown river
Of heroin shivers.
So I went down to Tampa
To find me an answer
But it wasn't coming
And neither was she.

Ray Charles' Dream sounds like New York circa 1979, loud brash but with a hint of the past deeply embedded.

Let It Breathe shows some Big Star influences and when it comes to matters of the heart it's the most endearing and optimistic of the songs on the album. It's the contrast of light, where the healing and hope of love is bought into focus.

There's a room inside my heart that no one ever goes
It's been boarded up and locked for years and everything is gone
Then you come along and cut yourself a key
Swept the floors and opened a window and said baby let it breathe.

 Water Liars is an album that drags you deep into it's embrace from the first listen, raw beauty amidst desolation and frustration lyrically concise never drifting towards banal sentimentality. Musically diverse capturing the sparse open spaces of bands like Magnolia Electric Company, early Wilco and the ethereal Gene Clark.

Tedeschi Trucks Band-Let Me Get By

Let Me Get By is the fourth album from the Florida based Tedeschi Trucks band, the finest purveyors of southern rock n soul around. Led by the inimitable soul drenched vocals of Susan Tedeschi and the ferocious guitar playing of Derek Trucks. Let Me Get By is their most coherent and consistent studio set with a more organic approach, where their previous album Made Up Mind featured outside songwriters their new record is self written and self produced by the group at their Florida studio. Above anything else it sounds like the band are having fun again, embracing their own musical vision. Tedeschi Trucks are never a band that plays it safe, rather than sticking to the formula of southern rock they continue to refine it, flourishes of jazz and gospel adding to the depth of their sound.

Anyhow is a plaintive take on what it means to take stock and find a moment of clarity. It's a theme that connects the songs on this album, there is a reflective sense of resignation but also a feeling of strength and defiance.

Running from a bitter taste
Took a rest from all the chase
Feeling something anchored on my soul
Played the game by all the rules
Learning lessons no one gets to choose.

Laugh About It is a funky blast of raw blues, with Trucks giving a pulsing solo. His guitar work on this album is more pensive but there are moment when those notes just wail into the ether. There is more space for the horns on this album which give it a more New Orleans style feel on many of the songs. Don't Know What It Means also pushes for a sense of clarity, the world moves too fast and it's often difficult to stop and take a breath.

When the sun comes shining through
Lighting up what's left of you
And you put it all aside for another day
Pick it up and rearrange it 
Though you know you won't change it.
Cuz you've always been a stranger anyway.

Right On Time has Mike Mattison on vocals and it's a standout track, sounding like it was recorded at the tale end of a boozy jam session in some New Orleans speakeasy. Let Me Get By is classic southern rock with some pumping organ work from Burbridge. Just as Strange is stripped back with a deeper blues feel to it.

I Want More is a strident funky declaration to give and gain as much from this life as possible, the possibilities are endless with an open heart and mind. Trucks as always builds a slow build solo, but the guitar solo is very mellow and restrained. There is some masterly flute work from Kofi Burbridge that gently unwinds alongside Trucks' guitar.

The wistful In Every Heart has an optimism and sense of acceptance that permeates through the album,

In every heart there's a name
Under the perfume and all the blame
In every heart
In every story a heart
It won't ever leave you, so dream away
In every heart.

Let Me Get By is a work that shows a band maturing in their songwriting approach and avoiding the pitfalls of just being a southern rock staple. This album has great diversity and a very natural feel, their playing is always precise but this album feels like it opens up more space for the rest of the band.