ROOTS

Latest releases reviewed

JOSH ROUSE Nashville Rykodisc ****

The title of the fifth album from this excellent, understated US songwriter is the kind of quiet joke you would expect from Josh Rouse. The nearest Nashville gets to country music is the occasional steel guitar in the background or a lone mention in Carolina - this is really a pop record, albeit a very cool pop record in the retro soft-rock style of the early 1970s. Rouse, who revealed his penchant for the era in his last album, the brilliantly realised 1972, has written or co-written 10 songs that on first hearing sound misleadingly lightweight, but which grow in stature with each hearing until you find yourself humming a line from It's the Nighttime or Winter in the Hamptons. Small-town scenarios, growing-up, life and all its small triumphs and disappointments are the grist for his trawl through his memories. Bittersweet, slightly distant, quietly intelligent, the touch of Rouse and his sensitive band is sure throughout. www.joshrouse.com Joe Breen

DEADSTRING BROTHERS Deadstring Brothers Times Beach Records ****

It's like a statement of intent - the first sounds from Detroit's Deadstring Brothers' début album is a drum pattern followed by a swash of abrasive guitar chords. We are not in tweeland here. The song, I'm Not A Stealer, mysterious and brash, introduces the band's sound, a twangy take on rock 'n' roll's past, specifically Rolling Stones circa Exile on Main Street (as their website admits) with touches of the Jayhawks and classic-era Tom Petty. In other words, their references are classy. But the Brothers are no slavish imitators. Led by Kurt Marschke's impressive vocals, the five-piece band swagger through a collection of songs full of gunslinger guitar moves and sweeping country choruses. Expect the joint to be jumping when they visit for gigs in The Lobby, Cork (February 25th); Cuba, Galway (26th) and Whelans, Dublin (28th). www.deadstringbrothers.com Joe Breen

VARIOUS ARTISTS A Western Jubilee Dualtone ****

Subtitled 'Songs and Stories of the American West', this is a classic collection of Texas-flavoured song stories, shot through with big skies, open trails and wagon trains that'll transport the listener to places where yodelling, cattle rustling and canyon crossings are simply part of life's daily patchwork. Peter Rowan, David Wilkie and Cowboy Celtic and Katy Moffatt lend crystalline snapshots of their particular worlds, each song lovingly honed with one eye on the story and the other on the feather duvet in which they bask. Standouts are The Sons Of San Joaquin, whose nostalgia-laden Sierra Nevada conjures rusty memories of Sunday afternoons holed up in front of a ropey western on the telly. A taster of a label that's surely worthy of a deeper delve. www.dualtone.com Siobhán Long