Jon Tyler Wiley & His Virginia Choir – Laura Lee
Similar artists: Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Wilco, The Black Crowes
Genre: Southern rock, Country-rock
I don’t think that there’s ever been a time when bands had less time or the inclination to try and move an audience. To really get them to shake both physically and down to their soul.
But, hey, I can’t exactly blame them. They gotta keep the lights running. And, with touring plans derailed for the past couple of years, most established bands are zooming through your towns, collecting your ticket fees at blinding speed.
It doesn’t exactly add up to a party, but usually, to a moderately-successful rendition of greatest hits and grandpa jokes. We’re lucky, however, that there are still some for whom this will not do.
Jon Tyler Wiley & His Virginia Choir’s Laura Lee shakes, rattles, and rolls like someone being given one last shot of bourbon and one last dance. Its music that suggests intense hip movement. The vocals seem slung toward an audience. This is not a band that would be content with simply playing the music without acting it out. I’m convinced of that, and I haven’t even seen them live.
Ralph Nix & the Guilt Birds – Window Shopping
Genre: Americana, Alt-Country
Similar artists: Avett Brothers, Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show
There’s just something about successfully combining two flavors that don’t go together. Once this happens, and once you have witnessed your accomplishment, there’s no way to severe this marriage.
Music is not much different from creating any tasty dish. The possibility of one day finding a way to combine two elements that shouldn’t really function together makes many songwriters forge on with their work.
Modern alt-country, for example, has a great, neat way of putting together terrible news with lovely, sprightly instrumentals. It’s a kind of gallows humor set to music. Once you hear, you’ll always expect it in this kind of context.
Ralph Nix & the Guilt Birds’ Window Shopping promises and delivers a jittery good time. This is music for dances held to celebrate catastrophes. If that’s not enough, the nimble country playing and the confident vocals could be enough to make us all believers.
