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Though 2020 has been a year of noxious politics, dizzying precaution, and dispiriting inaction, anyone tapped into music culture has been thankful for artists like Baltimore-based June Star, artists without whose honesty, heartfelt storytelling, and outright kick-ass songs make the worst of times more manageable. Luckily, despite the heaviness of the moment, Andrew Grimm’s recording project June Star buoys souls with aching vocals and plaintive folk arrangements. Paired with his literature-indebted perspective, Grimm comes off like Smog-era Bill Callahan if he had chosen to dive inward or The Jayhawks if they were more keen to stark emotional realism. June Star brings a time-honored aesthetic to his unique tales of fractious love, quixotic anxiety, and the looming shadow of death. 

Coming off a dizzyingly prolific run of releases – this will mark his 11th full-length record in six years – June Star’s forthcoming 2021 release How We See it Now came about by breaking through the social-emotional chokehold that 2020 strapped the world with. Though these songs were not written for or during the lockdown (for that see Grimm’s 2020 solo release A Little Heat), they were born from a flurry of creative output. Grimm holed up at Magpie Cage Studios in Baltimore, MD and culled together a ‘best of’ from his past three years worth of Bandcamp output. When he finally sat down to listen to years worth of material, these were the songs that stood out as surefire winners.  

Listening through, it’s easy to hear what was so special about these twelve tracks: pedal-steel laden laments sway drunkenly next to folk-rock foot-stompers and his vocal performances ache with the same existential doubt we all feel at the moment. But where some artists wallow, June Star searches for hope. On songs like “I’m Not Afraid of the Fall” his romantic resignation comes off not like a forlorn sigh, but a deep breath, prepping himself for all the joy and pain that comes hand-in-hand with love and existence. 

Grimm’s elegiac and bottom-heavy tenor opens the album by hopefully intoning, “If we get any better/Would you respond next time?” The impressionistic nature of this sentiment – both sanguine and dejected – rubs elbows with bittersweet cello and effervescent chorus-laden guitars, recalling a familiar jaded pop prowess (like if Jeff Tweedy were indebted to Johnny Marr rather than Gram Parsons). Elsewhere, the insistent thrum of the titular track disarmingly nails the marriage of modern Americana with the sticky harmonies of late-90s pop rock ala the Gin Blossoms and Old 97s. Regardless of where the needle lands, Grimm is there with his guitar and a very talented group of folk-rock musicians anchored by Dave Hadley’s expert pedal steel playing. Deftly produced by Bunky Hunt, the entire album emits a warmth not just from the traditional instrumentation, but also the way Hunt seems to capture the energy of live performance and highlight the rapturous details that make the distinction between an album and a classic clear.

Grimm, who has been plugging away on the scene with June Star since 1998, doubles as an Academic, teaching college literature courses during the day, while crafting songs in his spare time. In essence, Grimm has been producing albums since 1998, though he humbly claims that he has only mastered it in the last decade. As Grimm’s writing has matured and grown, he’s learned to focus his lyrics and narratives on the external, even going so far as to write an entire album focusing on his neighbors on 2018’s East on Green. Adopting this new ethos has engendered a myriad of songs culminating in How We See it Now, which expertly melds the lyrical punch of his literary inspirations with the down-to-earth, no bullshit naturalism of Paul Westerberg.  

And while the world  anticipates the return of live music with bated breath, Grimm is taking full advantage of his free time continuing to plug away at his songcraft and capturing the precarious spirit of modern times. Luckily, while the world awaits egress from hibernation, we have records like How We See it Now to suture the cracks in our collective hearts. 

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Like the local dive bar’s perennial drunkard, Parker Smith’s music has that rare ability to thrive while at its scrappiest. All aching pedal steel and cigarette-soaked pleas, Smith seems to put his own spiritual turmoil in a chokehold, elevating it until he squeezes out the elegant songs that make for his forthcoming sophomore LP, Underground. Unlike most of his peers in the Americana community, Smith manages to defy being pigeonholed by inflecting his music with touches of blue-eyed soul (“Fray”), Asbury Park-indebted blues-rock (“Holy Water”), and even Gordon Lightfoot (“Arrowroot”). 

Though Underground might technically fall under the umbrella of a “quarantine album,” these songs differentiate themselves from Smith’s oeuvre in their raw, confessional nature and their hummability: these are songs not easily shaken from memory. And aptly so, as the album itself deals with the pain, guilt, and heartbreak inherent in engaging with some of your deepest memories. This theme is most concisely captured on “Arrowroot” – another name for the invasive plant kudzu – where he slyly recounts the disruptive nature of memory itself and, as Smith himself tells it, “trying to clear your head when all of that [memory] is weighing you down.”

However, most poignantly adhering to this motif is the tragic balladry of “Company Man,” which recounts his own father’s licentious perfidy and subsequent exposure at the hands of Smith’s mother. Rather than revel in self-pity though, Smith adopts his mother’s point-of-view and transforms a story of a marriage’s defeat into a triumph of his mother’s spirit: “They checked in to different rooms/But he never unpacked in room 402/Dropped his suitcase in 403/Son of a bitch underestimated me.”

Elsewhere, on the aforementioned “Holy Water,” echoes of Smith’s struggles with faith haunt the songwriter – “Try to unravel/This heavy tome/That I carry around in a box” – before he intones that even his spiritual plight can’t hold him down – “No holy water will smooth this rock.” All the while, the glam-turned-Americana riff accentuates Smith’s swagger and confidence before ceding the floor to a searing sax solo courtesy of Zac Evans.  

Of course, this album wouldn’t have been possible were it not for the crack-team of artists and players he assembled. Colin Agnew and Noah Kess both lent their production and mixing talents, while Colin also played drums and percussion and John Kingsley (pedal steel), Mimi Naja (backing vocals), Chris Case (keys), and Kelly McFarling (backing vocals) round out the supporting cast.

Parker Smith (FKA Parker Smith and the Bandwith) grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and though he hails from a non-musical family, his abilities and passion for playing seeped through at a young age. After nurturing his interest in middle school, high school saw Smith involved in numerous garage bands. Following his passion through college at the University of Miami, where he played in a Songwriting Ensemble – one founded by the Bruce Hornsby. It was here, in this ensemble that, after inspirational work with musicians from all over the globe, he began considering a career in music. Smith eventually became a music teacher at all levels of schooling before earning a graduate degree in music education from the University of Texas. Finally, moving back to Atlanta in 2015, Smith quickly found himself absorbed in the music scene, channeling his disparate influences – The Allman Brothers, Miles Davis, Randy Newman to name a few – and passion for music education into opening Guitar Shed, a music school for young aspiring musicians. As if juggling his own business wasn’t enough to satiate the artist’s appetite, all the while, Smith has kept a steady foot in the Atlanta music scene by playing out as often as possible.

Ultimately, Underground is the sound of living and of life, of the ways we grapple with our pasts, and of the ways we forge through the murkiest depths of the current. All told, Underground stands as a breathtaking work of Americana and the American spirit in 2020, perennially sinking, but always moving forward.