Boo Ray is back with his first album since 2016’s Sea Of Lights. That album saw him stretching out his country fried rock and roll sound a bit while this new one sees him landing more firmly in honky tonk territory. There are plenty of rockin’ moments to be found here, but this album is in my opinion his most country leaning. Let’s take a deeper dive into this record.
The re-emergence of girl-driven garage rock is one of the best trends of the last few years. It isn’t easy to balance the discordant and the beautiful. Post-punk requires a bare soul and poetry wrapped in barbed wire. With Cycles’ fuzzy guitars and hard-driving drum beats, Church Girls manage to keep the garage rock sound alive without irony.
When you hear an artist like Charles Wesley Godwin sing, there is no need to power cycle your sense of disbelief. The sinewy roots of West Virginia’s hardscrabble existence seem to be intertwined with Godwin’s synapses and muscle tissue, almost as if he’s a construct of the land itself, like a scrub tree clinging to life on the ridge side of an especially steep holler.
How we react in the face of adversity says a lot about us as people. Unfortunately, some people barely hold on, but those that do manage to reclaim some semblance of normality and themselves, inadvertently inspire those around them. This is why Rose & Cigarettes sophomore album Echoes and Silence is an extraordinary release that not only looks at the past but moves forward beyond lead singer Jenny Pagliaro’s battle with Stage IV cancer.
It’s fair to say that this new album has all the hallmarks of their classic Californian sound we heard on their self-titled debut album. But in a lot of ways it is sonically superior which is a testament, for instance, to Petrilli’s amazing ear for musicality and her ability to draw on her influence from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Led Zeppelin.
Singer-songwriter Charles Wesley Godwin captures his storied surroundings in his new solo debut album, Seneca, out February 15.
With a sound that can be described as Creedence Clearwater Revival meets Simon & Garfunkel, the West Virginia musician creates an honest and moving ode to his hometown, Morgantown.
Raised in the Appalachia, Godwin sets a vivid scene with his inviting, gripping vocals and melancholy lyrics, creating a story arc filled with love, laughter, and personal grow
“I’ve been doubled down, all in and going for broke as a full-time troubadour and recording artist for 10 years and Tennessee Alabama Fireworks lays it all on the line,” says Boo Ray. Although he might best be known for setting Nashville ablaze with his roots rock, the singer-songwriter is definitively a contemporary troubadour. Born in North Carolina and currently laying his hat in Los Angeles, Athens, and Nashville alike, the modern-day jongleur has developed his craft between his travels to all manner of places to perform for all manner of people. To define Tennessee Alabama Fireworks as the culmination of all of that time spent still nearly underestimates the singer-songwriter’s scorching collection of new Americana offerings. For all of the experience that’s made Boo Ray the artist he is today, there is also something intangible deeply-rooted in his craft as a genuine country outlaw.
Gathering a team of Americana notables to produce and master his latest effort, Boo Ray’s new album is a compilation of reflections on the 21st-century human experience.