Old Crow Medicine Show’s eighth studio album serves as a companion piece to their 2022 release ‘Paint This Town’, which topped the Americana Radio Albums Chart.
The band have been together in one form or another for 25 years. The track Miles Away is the band’s first recording in 12 years with co-founder Willie Watson.
The album also features appearances from legendary soul singer Mavis Staples (on the Gospel tune One Drop) and singer/songwriter Sierra Ferrell (Belle Meade Cockfight). For the latter I am prepared to give the group the benefit of the doubt and assume that this up-tempo string number is intended as criticism of the barbaric ‘sport’ of cock fighting but, it has to be said, any outrage is buried deep in the mix.
Member Ketch Secor says a passion for injecting vitality and topicality into traditional music has played a major part in their longevity. However, apart from vague references to freedom and salvation any comments about or criticism of the modern world are lost on me.
Being benignly oblivious of any of the contemporary challenges facing the planet right now, the easy listening music merely sounds like a lacklustre exercise in the bland leading the bland.
