Opening with a diverse set of songs – the airy Blues Rock of ‘Man Out of Time’; the soulful deep southern Gospel infused ‘Wade waist Deep’ and the ‘Folkified’ country breeze of ‘Heartbreak Alley’ Thomas Wynn and the Believers manage to encapsulate all of the reasons why bands should expand their music outlook. That still, of course, leaves you wondering what comes next. Fear not it’s all good.
With vocals from brother Thomas and his younger sister Olivia Wynn Roche there’s a nice richness in the melding of vocals that gives the music a nice shimmering quality. With a sound that takes from Gospel, Soul, Blues, and older traditional American music there’s the essence of bands like the Marshall Tucker Band, fellow Floridians The Allmans, and Canadian’s The Band amidst the Gospel and Country primary influences.
On a spiritual album that threads it’s influences through the well worn cloth of American music it’s tracks like the wonderfully moving ‘My Eyes Won’t Be Open’ and the even more powerful ‘I Don’t Regret’ that really shine; while songs like the almost perfunctory ‘Thin Love’ add nice sparkly baubles to the mix that seem superfluous at first but greatly enhance the whole upon reflection.
A little for the rockers comes in the form of mid-album tracks like the gloriously rich organ-drenched ‘You Can’t Hurt Me’ (Cream meets Blackberry Smoke); the brooding, bursting classic rock of ‘Mountain Fog’ and the wailing vintage Aerosmith meets Zeppelin stew of ‘Burn as One’.
After that hearty burst it’s down to earth again for the acoustic-opened wholesome Allman-like groove of ‘Feel the Good’ before the dark, swampy ‘We Could All Die Screaming’ cuts in before we’re lifted aloft again by the sparse and soulful closer ‘Turn It Into Gold’.
This could well be one of the best albums of 2017.
