Here’s some the best Americana and roots-type music releases for December 1st, 2023. Click the artist or album links to find out more. The artist’s names link to their websites and the CD title links go to either Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp or the artist’s site for ordering or downloading. A + sign means although not a featured release, it’s a notable album that’s still worth checking out. Also, this page will be updated as I find out about other new releases so check back again.
Zach Russell
Where the Flowers Meet the Dew (Carlboro Records)
Where the Flowers Meet the Dew’s 10 songs explore reincarnation, joy, and 21st-century romance via traditional country waltzes and psych-folk rock songs alike. Throughout, Russell sings with all the grace befitting a former karaoke host and current lapsed Baptist, landing somewhere between the flourish of Chris Stapleton and the grit of Sturgill Simpson. This is the rare debut album that’s sincere all the way through, made up of songs about muscadine wine and stones in the river getting “bowled over” until they’re only just slivers. Russell longs to live in a world where you can earnestly miss your papaw and even unironically imagine a lover “that puts on Maybelline.” There’s an awful lot of self-reflection here, and that’s Russell’s greatest achievement on Where the Flowers Meet the Dew: singing impassioned country songs that feel at once uniquely modern and conventionally timeless. (edited from No Depression review)
Also new this week…
Balsam Range – Kinetic Tone (Mountain Home Records)
Bill Booth – River Town (Wheeling Records)
Gregory Dwane – Nostalgia for Nothing (Peacedale Records) +
Fred Eaglesmith & Tif Ginn – A Christmas Card (A Major Label)
Uncle Shuffelo and His Haint Hollow Hootenanny – Uncle Shuffelo and His Haint Hollow Hootenanny (Spring Fed Records)
Coming out soon, or next year… The Longshore Drifters, John Craigie, Chatham County Line, Sarah Jarosz, John Leventhal, Corb Lund, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Joe Pug, Anna Moss and more!
