New Music - The Roadside Graves

Long time PHW favorites The Roadside Graves have completed the follow up to their 2007 breakthrough, and one of that year’s best albums, No One Will Know Where You’ve Been. My Son’s Home was just sent to me a week or two ago, and I’ve got to say, this thing’s a monster. At 18 tracks My Son’s Home plays out as one of the more ambitious albums I’ve heard in a long, long time - it’s a sprawling beast that touches on every strength of the band's sound (folk, blues, country, soul, Pogues, Springsteen, The Band, Rolling Thunder Revue, etc.). I’ll have a more in depth look at it as release time approaches - it’s due from Autumn Tone sometime this spring, but an official date has not been set.

To satiate our appetites the band has posted two new songs over at their myspace. The first is “Ruby”, and my adoration of it was well documented in my Favorite Songs of 2008 List. You see, the band sent along a 6-song demo CD last summer that contained “Ruby” and it’s been blasting from my car speakers pretty regularly ever since. The song is a lot grittier than anything from No One Will Know Where You’ve Been, and contains some typically sharp (twisted?) lyrics from John Gleason (“I remember the night your grandmother died/Cigarette in her hand and a book by her side/You and I on the couch just touching each other/We didn‘t tell a soul ‘til the morning after”), as well as a crazy-ass shout-along chorus. The other new one, “Take A Train”, is a bluesy barroom rocker on cheap trucker speed with some surprising time changes. The terrific piano/guitar interplay featured is par for the course for The Graves. Any fan of good Americana music should keep an eye out for My Son’s Home. It will undoubtedly be a highlight of 2009.

Stream :: Ruby / Take A Train
(from My Son’s Home. Info here)

MP3 :: Ruby (demo)
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