JOSH LANGSTON – Wishin’ You Would Call
Similar artists: Colter Wall, Paul Cauthen, Cody Jinks, Sturgill Simpson
Genre: Southern Rock / Red Dirt
People who “Go Hollywood” fix their teeth, get their hair straightened, and start showering every day. They’re all desperate to get in front of strangers who’ll judge them as being perfect specimens. Everyone thinks that it’s the desire for perfection that makes an audience want to fall in love with a performer. But they’re wrong.
If they were clever, they’d get a nice scar just above their bottom lip. Or, they’d get the weirdest haircut that an irresponsible barber would provide them. They’d start talking loudly and making a spectacle of themselves. They’d do anything to help them stand out. And, if they were singers, they’d look for character in their vocal style above any kind of pitch-perfect performance.
John Langston’s “Wishin’ You Would Call” is a radio-friendly country-rocker lead by a voice that sounds like it’s been sand-papered thinly. It’s a tone that reminds this reviewer of the excellent Tyla of Dogs D’Amour. It’s a kind of natural distortion that few would think of using in a song, and fewer would attempt to imitate. And, of course, it’s a sound that gets Langston noticed, a sound that delivers the singer out of the pack of similar performers.
Dylan Kight & The Nightbirds – Reasons To Run
Similar artists: The Milk Carton Kids, Ryan Adams, Jason Isbell
Genre: Folk rock, Indie Rock
Most of the kids today don’t grow up wanting to be cowboys. They don’t even imagine themselves as cowboys while they play-act through their first years of life. That’s unusual but something that could’ve been predicted.
Why is that? For one thing, it’s because the real cowboys, the folks who secured the Southern borders, were responsible for the kind of violence and bloodshed that makes “Blood Meridian” sound like a comedy. For another thing, the influence of American pop culture isn’t quite as strong globally, and what still exists has shifted its attention to other things. It takes something of a visionary to see the allure in the old Stetson hat and boots.
Dylan Kight & The Nightbirds do a great job of play-acting as indie-rock cowboys on the single “Reasons To Run.” In their imagined Western fairytale, the old gunslinger is weighed down by responsibility for what he’s done, and he’s in the mood to confess. It makes for an interesting story, complete with pretty melodies that sound like they’ve been left to dry off and peel in the hot noon Sun somewhere in the deep U.S.-owned South.
