Dakota by Stillhouse Hollow

Stillhouse Hollow appears to no longer be together. Hailing from from Franklin, Tennessee the group was a quartet that eschewed drums and took a more old-timey approach to their music. Nathan Griffin played guitar and banjo, Jess Perkins had rhythm duties with his upright bass (plus occasional piano), Scott Calpin played mandolin, and Joel Meeks blew on the harmonica and into a tenor sax. All 4 contributed vocals.

"Path" opens the album and bops along nicely with a bouncy bass that stands in contrast to the contemplative lyrics wherein Griffin ponders his future: "Where I'm bound is a winding road; it's narrow and it's deep". Everyone contributes here including some ragged harmony vocals that fit the song's homespun ethos perfectly. "Goosebumps" lumbers along in a fun, almost clumsy, way, as the narrator admits that a certain woman gives him the titular condition. It's led by some slashing mandolin from Calpin. He later trades licks with Meeks' harmonica on the upbeat "Miss Meg".

Despite the old-timey feel on many songs, not everything here sounds rustic and countrified. "Can't Take My Love" is a stab at 1950s rock 'n' roll replete with Meeks' wailing sax and plenty of oohs and ahhs courtesy of his bandmates singing in the background. This is followed up by "Pimp Hand". With gangsta rap lyrics that stand out ("It's hard to keep your pimp hand strong/when you can't keep your phone turned on") and acoustic instruments that threaten to turn this into an alt-country-hip hop hybrid a la The Gourds, the music here is a surprising blues-jazz pastiche and it all came across like Tom Waits in torch song mode after listening to some Vince Staples.

While there is an occasional note of sadness or a hint of something serious, Dakota is basically an exercise in fun. There's no exegesis on country life or self-conscious appeal to the likes of the Carter Family. It feels like some guys on their front porch simply enjoying themselves. Things feel a bit rough around the edges but genuine.

Prophets of the Iron Age by Balou

When a German band names their album Prophets of the Iron Age, it would not be unreasonable to think that they were purveyors of industrial heavy metal featuring detuned guitars fed through an array of distortion pedals to create an aural blitzkrieg. However, the band here, Balou, were a rather more middle of the road pop/rock affair.

I found precious little about Balou on the internet but apparently they broke up in 2010, about 3 years after this album was released. Although the band was from Regensburg, Germany, the cover features a blazer-clad guy wearing a cowboy hat shouting into a megaphone. Upon seeing this and the credits which list national steel guitar, banjo, and dobro, amongst a host of other instruments, I figured I was in for some Teutonic Americana. "Teuteonia"?

The first few songs added to this impression. "Back" features some wonderful vocal harmonies that sound like a bunch of guys out on a front porch while the beat has a vague "Loser" vibe, though with more of a homespun feel than the pieced togetherness of the Beck song. "Regret It" follows and again we have a fairly prominent drum beat that veered towards turbo tonk. There's some nice steel guitar to lend an Americana flavor and some tasty electric guitar flourishes as well. "Mr. President" mocks George Bush on top of some really fun banjo runs.

While these first three songs each have a bit of country to them, the album goes off in all directions from here on out. The environmental lament, "Bloody Sky", features banjo but also a big electric guitar solo and a chorus that sounds like latter day Blue Öyster Cult. "Songs of Yesterday" has congas and begins with an AOR vibe before the guitar soloing starts which basically turns it into ersatz Santana. "AMT Airlines" boasts a reggae beat while "Successful" is a stab at old school R&B. "Turn On the Light" is a cliche-ridden attempt at the blues that is nothing to write home about but it's fine, really.

There were a few times when it showed that lead singer Andreas Detterbeck's first language was not English. A couple mispronunciations that I noticed were not really a problem. But the chorus to "Successful" just sounded awkward, as if they were trying to shoehorn too many syllables in there. Everyone seemed to be good players and I liked the harmony vocals a lot. But the whole things comes off as an ill-conceived simulacrum of American music. They could never really make the songs swing.