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James Houlahan

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James Houlahan // The Wheel Still in Spin

Four albums deep, James Houlahan is still reveling in the wonder and imagination of the record-making process. His new LP, The Wheel Still in Spin, drifts through varied states of being, musically and lyrically evoking the stillness against constant motion of that strange optical phenomenon the wagon-wheel effect, where a spoked wheel’s spin appears to cut opposite its actual rotation. It’s an apt analogy with Houlahan. In addition to the new album’s title, he alludes to the Tarot’s Wheel of Fortune on the record, and often makes explicit reference to wheels and circles as a means of processing his own journey. Influenced by icons such as Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Joni Mitchell, Houlahan’s songcraft lends itself to a particular alchemy of Americana. It’s easy to understand how and why Houlahan has become such a staple of the Los Angeles music scene.

“I’m staying inspired, motivated and in motion, though there’s a disorientation happening,” he says, discussing headspace these strange days. “I don’t know really know where I’m going in the big sense of things, but I have to just keep going.”

With songs like “Faded,” written right around the time Houlahan first encountered Daniel Johnston’s drawing “Faded Dreams,” he makes cutting observations on getting older and realizing certain things are never going to come to pass. “This is more of a character song,” Houlahan says. “I’m not this despairing at all. I’ve done a lot of traveling, and the idea of travel was on my mind. It’s also about feeling disconnected from yourself. It’s a little psychedelic, too.”

Other tracks like “All I’ve Got” and “Spirit/Music”—featuring the hazy vocals and mystic aura of late-’60s psych-folk pioneer Linda Perhacs—spill out like campfire tales, rich, earthy and as free-flowing as the star-lapping flames. The Wheel Still in Spin, produced by Fernando Perdomo (Linda Perhacs, Jakob Dylan) and tracked at Reseda Ranch Studios, is a warm and enveloping affair. Perdomo also handles bass and keyboards on the record, while Houlahan supplies ample guitar and harmonica. Danny Frankel, known for his session work with Lou Reed, Fiona Apple and Nels Cline, among others, adds lush and fevered percussion and drums. Houlahan’s girlfriend, accomplished talent Esther Clark, can also be heard as background vocalist throughout the album.

“Some of the songs are a little more personal than on my other albums,” Houlahan says. “This process was a lot simpler than any other record I’ve made. It was great to work in the studio without any time constraints. I wasn’t working by the hour. It was more relaxed, and it seemed like these songs wanted to be together—more personal and stripped-down.”

A native of Concord, Mass., Houlahan’s story is a typically American tale of dream-seeking. He started playing piano at 8 years old, switching to guitar in his teens. He sharpened his craft in the basement for years before he felt comfortable performing, and it wasn’t until his 20s that he began playing his music in front of crowds. While living in Boston in the mid aughts, he played lead guitar in a few rock bands, but eventually knew he couldn’t let his solo work go unheard. “I realized that if I didn’t sing my songs nobody else would,” Houlahan says. He released his first two solo efforts Seven Years Now (2009) and misfit hymns (2012) before relocating to Los Angeles and releasing Multitudes in 2016.

Earlier this year, Houlahan landed his song “Going Home for Thanksgiving” in the feature film Little Pink House, starring Catherine Keener (Get Out, Capote, Being John Malkovich) and also featuring musical contributions from David Crosby. Originally, Houlahan’s friend, film composer Ryan Rapsys, approached him to cover a Johnny Cash song for the soundtrack. When that fell through, he put his nose to the grind and delivered in a big way.

On his new album The Wheel Still in Spin (out Sept. 21), Houlahan scratches out matters of the heart through a lens fogged with deep sorrow. His mood is often downcast (“Sunday Song,” “Let It Go”), but his voice is always laced with quiet hope. “It’s getting harder day to day,” he sings on “Stuck in Between,” one of the album’s darkest moments. But Houlahan carries his cross with a refreshing majesty. “I’m used to rejection,” he says, “I experience rejection all the time. My career is learning how to manage failure. It’s a feeling that I need to persevere through all these obstacles because the songs are still coming.”

That sobering tone ebbs and flows throughout the album, which is bookended by “California,” a harmonica-laden cry into the dusky evening shadows. “All my roads have run out of pavement,” Houlahan sings as he rides off into the sunset, tugging listeners along with him into the stunning western ambiance and leaving them reeling from the weight of permanent change. Houlahan’s charm seeps through his plainspoken nature in subtle yet masterful strokes. The Wheel Still in Spin is his best album to date, positioning him to take his place at the forefront of the vibrant Americana scene.

“The pain of human reluctance to let things go that we once loved is palpable in this little gem.” – Americana Highways

“A sound that is equal parts folk and dream pop.” – Americana UK

“Paints a stunning romanticized vision of the West.” – Cowboys & Indians Magazine

“his record is simultaneously forlorn as it is warm and enveloping. “- Folk Radio UK
 

Ben Fisher

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Ben Fisher // Does the Land Remember Me?

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has rarely been addressed in American music. But on Ben Fisher’s latest release, the Damien Jurado-produced Does the Land Remember Me?, the Seattle-based folk artist—who spent three years living in Israel—dives headfirst into an entire concept album on the subject, a bloodcurdling and somber meditation that humanizes those on both sides of the divide. Fisher’s metaphorical and literal interpretations are wreathed together in a binding, barbed-wire circle as he tackles a complex and heavy narrative. His skill as a songwriter and storyteller is a big part of what drew the interest of producer Jurado, and it has landed him gigs over the years on bills with groundbreaking artists such as Courtney Marie Andrews, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Animal Collective, The Head and the Heart, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and countless others.

His voice equal parts frayed and sinewy, Fisher spurns complacency with tremendous urgency on Does the Land Remember Me?, his second full-length. He takes great care in his storytelling, especially on standout track “1948,” an evocative duet with Noah Gundersen that features Fisher singing from the perspective of a Jewish child and Gundersen from the perspective of an Arab child at the outset of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, known by Israelis as the War of Independence and in Palestinian society as the Nakba (catastrophe). “Are you scared of the men, Papa / They don’t want us here / Are you scared of the men, Papa / They’ve been here for years / Are you scared all of this will go,” Fisher sings over a plaintive fingerpicked guitar.

Fisher acts primarily as the record’s narrator, drawing from the three years he spent living in “No Man’s Land,” smack between predominantly Arab East and predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem. But the roots of the album date back to a 2014 excursion to Tokyo. It was there that Does the Land Remember Me?’s opening track “The Shell Lottery”—a musical history lesson on the 1909 founding of Tel Aviv—hit Fisher like a lightning bolt. “I started thinking about the scope of Sufjan Stevens’ records Illinois and Michigan,” he says. “It dawned on me that there was something to this song, and that there could be more.”

Does the Land Remember Me?— scheduled for a September 7 release—is a bleak but honest portrait of the Israeli and Palestinian people, who have been locked in a cycle of violence for the better part of the last century. “One of the biggest issues is that people are no longer interested in what happens there,” Fisher says. “It’s gone on for so long, the peace process is so gridlocked and there have been so many people killed. The world has become numb to it.”

As he searches for the right words, Fisher scours his conscience in search of hope—a hope that people will be moved and inspired to action through the record. “Passivity is much worse than taking a stand, even if I don’t particularly agree with that stand,” he says. “Young Americans, in particular, need to help moderate America’s influence on Israel.”

In an attempt to shed further light on the conflict, Fisher doesn’t shy away from the sheer brutality experienced by the Middle East and its people.“They Must Have Been So Scared” is one of the album’s glistening gems, but it’s also the most grim and heart-wrenching. In three verses, the ballad peels back the layers of three tragic stories. “The summer of 2014 was a particularly bloody and terrible time in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” Fisher says. Verse one of the song unspools the tale of a Palestinian family in Gaza who are killed by an Israeli airstrike; verse two exposes the kidnap and murder of three Israeli boys by Palestinian terrorists; and verse three tells the narrative of a Palestinian boy burned alive by a group of Jewish terrorists. Fisher later frames the hook, “They must have been so scared / Must have felt death chill the air / How could you leave them there?” around his atheist beliefs, offering up a bitter prayer “to a god I don’t believe in for all these insane deaths that happened that summer,” he says with a disarming matter-of-factness.

It’s not all conflict songs though; the second half of the record sees Fisher singing about Israeli folk heroes like astronaut Ilan Ramon and singer-songwriter Meir Ariel. “For Petr and Ilan” tells the story of Ramon’s doomed trip into space aboard the Columbia. He took with him copies of a drawing done by a young Czechoslovak boy named Petr Ginz, who was murdered in Auschwitz. With a style and lyrical form that pays homage to the American folk canon, Fisher sings, “The astronaut wore a flag patch on his arm / The little boy wore a yellow star / Got taken away in a cattle car / The astronaut wore a flag patch on his arm”

Born to a bacon-eating Jewish family and eventually majoring in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Washington, Fisher’s sudden obsession with Israel led him to leave his family for the first time, traversing thousands of miles across oceans and time zones. “It got to the point where I was baking pita and reading [Israeli newspaper] Haaretz in the mornings,” he says. “It’s much easier to be obsessed with something when you’re surrounded by it.” Not long after graduating from college, he packed up his entire life and moved to the ancient city, where spent his time bartending, and writing, reporting and traveling for The Jerusalem Post.

?In “Brave New World,” one of the few songs drawing on Fisher’s personal experiences, he sings about the foreignness of the Holy City: “Everyone I’ve ever known lives far across a sea / My brave new world can be old and cold but you struck a chord in me.”

His return to the U.S. in the summer of 2017 propelled him to finish Does the Land Remember Me?, the album spilling forth with an elusive humanity too often mangled by the evening news and the purgatorial bickering of social-media feeds. The title song, a melodic piano-anchored affair, presents the story of a Palestinian expelled from his home during the 1948 war. Minutes later, on the wretchedly radiant “Yallah to Abdullah,” Fisher peers through the eyes of an Israeli soldier during the same war, underscoring the album’s goals of humanity and understanding.

He later etches an equally affecting moment with “Abraham’s Song,” the track with the shortest run-time on the record but perhaps the most involved backstory. “This was the hardest song for me to write because I disagree so wholeheartedly with their mindset and political agenda,” says Fisher about writing from the perspective of a Jewish settler in the West Bank. “I wanted to portray this person in a sympathetic, human light,” he continues. “I tried to paint the narrative of the settler movement, which started as an arguably innocent thing, and evolved into something sinister, ugly, dangerous and evil.”

Fisher strikes a fitting balance between emotion and reality on Does the Land Remember Me?. By allowing himself to inhabit these real-life characters, he makes possible a deeper understanding of the dire state of this tiny strip of land and its people. And his experiences only seem to aid his desire for mercy, eerily feeding into each stark moment with enthralling insight. Does the Land Remember Me? is a career-making record, timely and crucial.

“This is an album that truly matters.” – Americana UK

“Like Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson or Nick Cave…” – Billboard

“A bloodcurdling and somber meditation that humanizes those on both sides of the divide.” – Dope Cause We Said

“Humanizes those on both sides of the divide with strong storytelling and narratives from different character perspectives.” – Earbuddy

 

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Press Contact: Steve LaBate – stevelabate@babyrobotmedia.com

 

BIOGRAPHY

Over the course of his career, singer/songwriter and Americana artist Tom Freund has released more than a dozen records, collaborated with legends such as Elvis Costello and Jackson Browne, pulled a half-decade stint on bass for alt-country pioneers The Silos, and has shared bills with everyone from Matthew Sweet to Guided by Voices. Freund’s intimate, heartfelt new solo album, East of Lincoln, chronicles a personal journey along the path from self doubt to enlightenment. “Time to take the wheel and turn this thing around / Time to make a deal and see what’s going down,” he affirms on “Runaround.” Freund takes his time and lets these new songs simmer, and that—along with memorable guest spots from longtime friend and collaborator Ben Harper and an all-star cast of session players—is a big part of the record’s charm.

Quietly reveling in its unhurried pace, East of Lincoln sticks in the mind long after listening. Within the record’s framework, Freund tackles progress, hope, and the corporatization of his beloved Venice Beach, which he captures as a bittersweet vortex of vanishing beauty and possibility. “I know I’m no saint, but I know when something is good and when it ain’t,” he sings on the title track, mourning Venice’s fading allure while basking in its once-electric atmosphere. The album dances on the edge of a stark duality: the sun-drenched SoCal beach town’s demise and Freund’s own eventual growth arc. “Better start swimming toward the shore,” he urges on “Abandoning the Ship.”

Much of the record—co-produced by Freund and Sejo Navajas (Smoke Season’s Gabrielle Wortman, Vintage Trouble)—is devastatingly raw. The primarily acoustic arrangements are livened up with some spectacular drumming from Matt Johnson (St. Vincent, Jeff Buckley) and Michael Jerome (Toadies, John Cale, Blind Boys of Alabama), pedal and lap steel from Ben Peeler (Dawes, Shelby Lynne, Father John Misty), keys from Rami Jaffe (Foo Fighters, Ryan Adams) and Chris Joyner (Sara Bareilles, Rickie Lee Jones) and violin from Jessy Greene (Wilco, The Jayhawks). But even with all these studio heavyweights on call, Freund is front and center on the record, singing and playing an eclectic mix of instruments including guitar, mandolin, ukulele, synth and his signature upright bass.

Ben Harper, who produced Freund’s 2008 record Collapsible Pains, lends his vocals to “Abandoning the Ship” and supplies steel guitar to ethereal closing track, “Dream On (Believe in Yourself).” Grammy-winning mixer Jim Scott, known for his work with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Wilco, Ron Sexmsith, Alejandro Escovedo, Lucinda Williams and many more, steps in for several sterling moments as well, leaving his sonic stamp on title song “East of Lincoln,” dreamy standout “Homer Simpson’s Clouds (Day of the Locust)” and dusky saloon romper “Poached Eggs.”

In many ways, Freund’s entire life and career have been leading up to this moment. He’s spent much of his time traversing genres, melding whatever sounds have happened to catch his whimsy with his unmistakable, earthbound songwriting. Back in high school, Freund played bass in the jazz ensemble and performed in productions such as Swing. A few years later, he enjoyed a brief stint in the off-Broadway scene and took classes at Columbia University in New York, later transferring to Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., but when music came knocking again, Freund answered.

His very first album was 1992’s Pleasure and Pain, a duo set with Ben Harper. For the next five years, he also toured and recorded with The Silos before releasing North American Long Weekend, his 1998 solo debut on Mercury Records. Moving ahead into the new millenium, Freund churned out several additional records while also assisting with projects from Mandy Moore, Rachael Yamagata, Graham Parker and other notable artists. From a handful of EPs to his 2007 kids record Hug Trees and 2011’s The Edge of Venice to his appearance playing alongside Parker in 2012 Judd Apatow comedy This is 40, Freund’s career has been a dynamic affair, and that includes plenty of work in film and TV.

His songs have been featured on series such as Better Things, Parenthood and One Tree Hill, and for his latest television project, forthcoming Amazon show Pete The Cat, Freund has co-written, sung and played songs with Elvis Costello, KT Tunstall, Dave Matthews and Diana Krall, and has also co-written the show’s theme song with creator Swampy Marsh (Phineas and Pherb). Costello takes lead vocals on each episode’s opening theme with Freund handling backing vocals and most of the instruments. Freund also co-wrote and sings the show’s end-credits song, “Go Pete Go.” All 14 episodes of the animated series are scheduled for release this September.

East of Lincoln builds on Freund’s legacy while pushing beyond his comfort zone. “Angelus” is a groovy, organ-doused opener, and “Freezer Burn” a vulnerable mid-tempo affair reflecting on personal flaws in the wake of a breakup. “I was running on hope and fumes,” he sings. And where “London Bound Lady” is feathery and sweet, “Broke Down Jubilee” is gutting and mournful, glimmering with tears and silver-lined strings.

Freund’s new record is a potent reminder that life is measured not just by our successes, but by how we choose to grow from our failures.

East of Lincoln is out now on Surf Road Records.

 

Nick Dittmeier & The Sawdusters

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Nick Dittmeier & the Sawdusters // All Damn Day

Southern Indiana musician Nick Dittmeier finds a needed reprieve from the looming presence of loss in his life with his new record All Damn Day (due October 26th). Fronting Nick Dittmeier & the Sawdusters, the singer-songwriter lingers on the omniscient Grim Reaper in a way that’s hopeful and uplifting as it is forlorn, harkening to the works of such literary giants as John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Roald Dahl and Mark Twain.

“I look at this record as a continuation of a lot of storytelling by these writers. Their themes touch on a lot of forgotten people, working class people and characters that have impossible situations in front of them,” says Dittmeier, who also draws heavily upon the work of Frank Bill, Dave Eggers, Kurt Vonnegut and Daniel Woodrall. His perceptiveness in his craft is refreshing and has so far earned him stage slots with the likes of Cody Jinks, John Prine, Turnpike Troubadours, Justin Townes Earle, The Mavericks and several others.

Suffice it to say, he needed this cathartic musical release to come to terms with a handful of challenging life events. “I went through a lot of deaths when I was starting to record this album,” he says. “So, a lot of the songs touch on people dying, something I normally wouldn’t have done.” His mother-in-law succumbed to an aggressive form of cancer, and he honors her life and homestead on the exceptional “Two Faded Carnations,” written during a lonesome drive from Salem to Scottsburg, Indiana, nestled deep within Scott County. The stretch of blacktop carves its way through ten miles of soy and corn fields, as so much of the Heartland does. The breathtaking beauty of the drive served to reinvigorate Dittmeier and his songwriting.

Dittmeier often looks to his roots and turns tragic circumstances into poetic replenishment. “We were young and wild / Rolling with the times / We put a gun upside your head so we could be partners in crime,” he sings, the flowering and savory-sweet production a deceiving tilt against the underlying misfortune. “Roulette caught up with us / Robbery that went wrong / Well, I might misheard my brother / Most likely our luck ran gone…”

On the same day his mother-in-law was told she would no longer treated for cancer, his great grandmother passed away, and his beloved dog died inexplicably in its sleep. Channeling the pain of these events, Dittmeier pours his all into the album’s 10 songs as he finds the strength to move ahead, mature and endure. This approach hammers like nails into freshly-cut lumber and lends itself well to his roots-rock style of songwriting.

Tucked away in a rural Indiana farmhouse alongside Indianapolis-based producers Jason McCulley (Josh Kaufman, Milbranch String Theory) and Ryan Koch (The New Etiquette, J. Elliott, Kate Lamont), Dittmeier was able to focus his energy while writing and recording these tunes with minimal distraction. Surrounded by nothing but sunny cornfields, he broke “down the flow of sentences and certain kinds of prose,” he says. “There are some unconventional song forms within the record.”

All Damn Day was shaped over the course of nine months and gushes with bigger, brighter sounds and aspirations for radio play. That’s not to say Dittmeier abandons his previous work’s touches; his lyrics remain firmly planted in employing such literary devices as imagery, metaphors/similes and tone to coax the listener into his little corner of the world. “Walking on Water” ricochets from the past to the present, as he recounts a hometown man who once fell into the Ohio River in the dead of winter. “Water commerce is still very present. My hometown has had the same barge company for almost 200 years. In my early 20s, I briefly worked as a longshoreman. While on the barge, there’s a three-foot walking space of ice. This worker fell in the river…and he lived.”

Truth be told, Dittmeier thrives on keeping the legacy of his family intact on the banks of the Ohio in a town called Jeffersonville, Indiana, where five generations have settled to raise families and make a living. He straddles the line between classic and contemporary, a leveling-up that only makes sense for a full-time working musician itching for what’s next.

As with most artists, Dittmeier played in various bands over the years but embarked on a solo endeavor four or five years ago, along with two EPs, 2013’s Extra Better and 2014’s Light of Day. Pulling in numerous players, the “& the Sawdusters” was tacked on for the band’s debut full-length, 2016’s Midwest Heart / Southern Blues. A bit of lineup reconfiguring then took place, furthering the frontman’s commitment to developing the kind of sound, feel and authenticity the band needed.

With All Damn Day, Dittmeier embraces the role of a storyteller with this collection of ten deeply introspective character sketches. He takes on each mantle so convincingly, it is often difficult to separate Dittmeier the person and Dittmeier the artist. But that’s the allotment most singer-songwriters of his caliber bear. From “Head to Rest” to “I Can’t Go Home” to “City of God,” a meditation on the 1937 flood of the Ohio River, the album has a remarkable presence that commands multiple listens.

“Heartland rock riffage meets classic country storytelling.” – Wide Open Country

“A backwoods howl akin to John Fogerty and a supercharged Skynyrd rock boogie.” – Glide Magazine

“Themes touch on a lot of forgotten people, working-class people and characters that have impossible situations in front of them.” Americana UK

“One artist that has consistently been releasing good music.” – Never Nervous

“An enjoyable southern country rock romp, offering a varied selection of lively toe-tapping songs and melodic, reflective pieces.” Americana UK

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The Deep Hollow // Weary Traveler (November 9th)

If there is one thing we can learn from Shawshank Redemption, it is this: we have to either get busy living or get busy dying. Americana trio The Deep Hollow are firmly planted in the former. Through their sophomore record, Weary Traveler, Micah Walk, Liz Eckert and Dave Littrell dig into this sorrowful life of getting older, longing for a stable home and the sometimes unbearable weight of the open road. Sonically, the band fits somewhere between the pulse of Patty Griffin and John Prine and the adventure of Jason Isbell, The Lone Bellow and Brandi Carlile.

With the assist from producer Gary Gordon (Montgomery Gentry, David Davis & the Warrior River Boys), the band shoots for a much grander sound than their 2016 self-titled debut. “I wasn’t totally sold on having a fuller sound. I was a little nervous going in,” Walk admits. “I was prepared to do it the way we did the last one. I’m really happy with the way it turned out, but it is a little different than our debut.”

Plump cello, violins, and muddy guitar intensify the stories, which are cut from both their personal lives and through the eyes of strangers. “Freedom Street,” which features Gordon tapping on a suitcase for some mellow palpitations, is another one of great misery among the bunch, depicting the reality of homelessness and glossed over with considerably charged political and religious overtones.

The trio plays off each other quite effectively, often trading songwriting credits, too, and with each honest-to-goodness, off-the-cuff life lesson they share, they bare witness to life’s most critical points. “Real Life” imparts sage advice from an older generation and sets the tone for a sojourn smack dab into the eye of the storm. Much later, “Misplaced Love” further questions the nature of their reality as framed in religion, leaving the listener with even more questions than when the story first started.

The cruelty of life comes to a head on “Anna’s Gone,” a somber, string-laden ballad about a green-eyed girl named Anna who commits suicide. “Now, I stay up way too late thinking about what went wrong / And what I could have said to make her see she belonged / And that she wasn’t better off dead,” Littrell mourns. It’s a performance that pierces the soul and one you’re not likely able to scrub from your memory.

“How to Make a Living” slides into a similar refrain of heart-torn pain, as the band grapples with the monotony of ssmall-townlife.  “I’ve been working at the lumber yard / But I ain’t fit to do the work that real men are,” sings Walk, Eckert and Littrell sweeping in to aid with hard-boiled, tight-knit three-part harmony. “I just stand behind a counter all day long / Trying to figure out where it all went wrong.”

The Deep Hollow came together as you might expect. Staples of the local music scene of Springfield, Illinois, Walk, and Littrell has an especially long list of previous credits and musical explorations, from collaborating in other Americana bands to touring extensively in a prog-rock band. Notably, Walk worked on a project with Jamie Candiloro, whose biggest collaborators include Ryan Adams, Willie Nelson, and The Eagles, among others. Eckert comes from a predominantly community theatre background, and she did try out for American Idol once and made it all the way to Hollywood. While her star wasn’t catapulted into the stratosphere then, her talents would come of great use around town, leading her to serve as a fill-in for a cover band, a side project of Walk’s. The two would strike an instant chemistry, and the duo formed in 2013.

Sometime later, when Littrell was itching to try out some new tunes he wrote, he turned to the duo ahead of an upcoming show. With no rehearsal, the trio hit the stage and something truly stupendous happened. A smooth blend of three-part harmonies poured out and set the foundation for an already impressive catalog of work together. “That was when we knew what we wanted next,” remembers Walk.

It was the song “Devil” that proved to be groundbreaking for them. They submitted it to American Songwriter’s 30th Anniversary Song Contest and ended up winning. “Not to sound jaded or disheartened or anything, but when you apply for a lot of contests for a few years and you maybe make it through a round or something, you almost assume nothing is going to come of it. We were excited to just be a finalist. When we won, it was like holy cow.”

They went on to play the City Winery to celebrate, performing alongside Jim Lauderdale, Jason Isbell, and John Oates. Then they hunkered down and made their debut record which included the award-winning track. They toured, they grew as songwriters, they developed their relationship as a band and wrote more music.

All that led them here.

Weary Traveler, recorded in Inside Out Studios in Sparta, Illinois, is not only a grainy snapshot of life but their ever-transforming live performance style, too. “I think that was just the way we were evolving live. We just decided to record the album that way,” says Walk. That feeling of being truly, unquestionably alive keeps the album afloat even in the darkest of times.

Heartache is often their primary muse, but they don’t get completely lost in it. There are several moments of clarity, including with such love songs as “Now I See,” “Wide Open Road” and “Hangin’ On.” They are well-earned payoffs for all of life’s doom and gloom, allowing the band to fully display the vastness of life itself. Quite simply, The Deep Hollow’s second album shines with catastrophe and hope, suffering and relief, desolation and contentment.

 

“With its three-part harmonies sounding richer, “Carry Me Home” might just crush it in some other songwriting contest.” – Wide Open Country

“The trio brilliantly weave in and out of each others’ harmonies, while the lyrics demand us to empathize with people we are often taught not to.” – No Depression