The hopes we had raised by reviewing his debut of the same name in 2017 have been largely satisfied: Dave Cobb, the Midas King of the country production of Nashville, the real country, the one made of dust and feelings, has again made center and what center gentlemen! Colter Wall has no equal in the American folk-country scene, a 23-year-old with a worn outlaw voice, deep dark and intense, a kind of Johnny Cash last-ditch manner influenced by Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, a western narrator as they had not been born in years. The songs are dry, essential and short: seven autograph pieces and four covers of underdog artists, as if to tell the world to be like those artists never celebrated, almost realizing that his work will be cult like that of Billy Don Burns, author of one of the most beautiful songs of the album, the cover Wild Dogs. Acoustic guitar straight from the prairies, frontier stories and we can almost feel the dust blowing from the plains. Wonderful fresco in notes: a few elected at his age was able to perform a visual-auditory miracle of such magnitude, also considering the modern society where his music is so retro that it seems martian. That’s why he’s gluing you to the crates. The middle part of the piece then, with the big drum beating, is like when the horse starts to gallop in the prairie and Lloyd Green’s pedal steel accompanies him. The band that follows Colter is pure excellence but also essentiality, including the brilliant harmonica of Mickey Raphael and, in choirs, the voice of his compatriot Corb Lund, another country underground artist, who deserves more celebrity. Among the covers also two traditional cowboy-songs: Night Herding Song and the final Tying Knots In The Devil’s Tail, almost to scream at all the universe that inspires, while Colter plays his acoustic guitar or while his voice gets into his belly with his stories of endless prairies. It’s not a radio record or easy to listen to, let’s be clear, it takes time to assimilate it, to understand its depth and just listen to the opening piece, Plain To See Plainsman, which was also the single opener, to understand that it will not be an easy journey but certainly exciting and intense this very short masterpiece: 35 minutes of songs of the plains, of wind-blown melodies, of acoustic guitars, harmonics and little else. The song that best sums up everything that Colter Wall represents (a minstrel of stories of the old west) is undoubtedly Wild Bill Hickok, a song that tells the story of the famous gunfighter and does so as only the great songwriters know how to do. Jewel true. In the previous review we had hoped right, trusting in Colter and Cobb. Hope certainly placed in the right artists who have given us today one of the most beautiful and intense western country and folk records of recent years, a very special journey in the history of the United States without thinking of sales or charts.
Good listening,
Trex Willer by http://www.magazzininesistenti.it
you can find original italian article at this link : http://www.magazzininesistenti.it/colter-wall-songs-of-the-plains-2018-di-trex-willer/ )
