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FATEA Reviews “On Our Way”: An album to uncork and drink deep.

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Recorded as individual parts and then woven together during lockdown, the Hawks return with their tenth album, one that takes their established social and eco commentaries and ups the ante in the wake of global crises of a pandemic and a political nature.

Dave Zirbel on pedal steel, it kicks off in jangly mandolin-led cosmic country style with ‘Might’ve Been Me’, about a fair and barefoot Sonoma wicca practitioner working her magic on the narrator (“She says I’m her apprentice/And yesterday she sent me/To gather bitter greens from your backyard”), keeping a Byrdsian 12-string feel for the title track, a song keening to rebirth and hope (“I don’t know/If the spring is coming/All I know is I’m on my way”).

One of the longest tracks at over six-minutes, coloured with backward guitar, caterwauling fiddle and accordion, ‘Know Just What To Do’ takes a psychedelic path for its intro before transmuting into an acoustic strummed waltztime ballad (albeit with diversion into raga midway) that, a kind of love song, again seems to be about finding direction again after feeling lost (“I walked outside, started to drive/Never wondering where I’d go/Let my hands fall off of the wheel”) by essentially surrendering to whatever forces are guiding (“When I saw your window felled up with light/I knew what I was doing had to be right”).

Things get musically dirtier with ‘Mississippi Gas Station Blues’, a lurching swamp rocker that channels Jim Morrison with its semi-spoken delivery and Dylan in the lyrics

(“You give me the Oxford Mississippi secondary gas station blues/You don’t have to love me/ But you’re gonna have to choose”) backed by hollow drums, organ and a scuzzy guitar. Musicologists will also note a reference to Morton Subotnick, the 60s pioneer of electronic music who composed ‘Silver Apples of the Moon’.

Drummer Victoria Jacobs steps up the microphone to sing lead on her self-penned ‘Kensington Market’ as they take off for 80s London, “the city of tea and scones” where “People stare/At your blue black plaited hair”, to “Get lost in the winding passages/ Check out all the crazy people/And take a look around”, the lyrics referencing mods and dub while the music and its dreamy vocals evoke the sound of British paisley 60s psychedelia by way of the Mamas and Papas. 

Back home, tapping into political protest, the largely acoustic picked countrified and, Ron Waller’s drawl recalling Steppenwolf’s John Kay, ‘Kentucky Jesus’ recalls Muhammed Ali’s 1967 defiance of the Vietnam War draft when he refused to be inducted into the army (“He’s going to take us to the promised land/And that’s why you don’t have to go to war”), keeping country and history on the table for the loping two beat acoustic twangy and pedal steel-laced ‘Geronimo’ which has the Apache chief pondering his next move against the US Army (“I’m not retreating, I’m considering direction/Crows to the south are flying scared/Hawks rises straight, and they don’t like to do that/I see the tall stone in the sand/I’m not running, I’m not crying/I’m only bending to space and time”).

Returning to present times, again big on lap steel, another love song, ‘Stealing’ recalls Gordon Lightfoot with its folksy acoustic country rock as, contemplating the divisions wrought by politics and the pandemic, Waller sings how “Down in the city we’re all getting played” and that “We gotta learn to live together”. 

Heading into the final stretch, it spreads its Byrdsian 12-string wings again with the steel-stained cosmic country of ‘If I Move’, the town’s landmarks serving a reminder of the narrator’s lost love (“Drove by the McDonalds where we decided not to get married/And the Denny’s where we said what the hell/There’s the parking lot where you told me you were pregnant”) now that she’s moved on and in with some guy in the Marina and he’s sitting in the diner and his “dreams are in the municipal garbage can”.

Paul Marshall’s grainy nasal vocals take lead for the strummed chug of ‘Radio Keeps Me On The Ground (Slight Return)’, a co-write with Great Willow’s James Combs that pays tribute to those increasingly rare radio stations and presenters (“A stranger’s voice/An invisible wind”) that buck the homogenised trend and give you something to hold on to in uncertain times.

Opening to the sound of jews harp and Jacobs desert night drums, Waller again conjuring the peyote-fuelled Jim Morrison, it ends with the eight minute drone ‘How You Gonna Know?’ a song capturing the sense of dislocation (underscored by its drum patterns, wah wah and guitar lines) as, to a tribal rhythm, Waller says “It’s a fine line/Between transitional and occluded/Between drought and beauty/Compassion and duty/Comfort and betrayal” and how “there’s no one here to tell us what to do/We’re all on our own/And we run the ridge of juniper and snow/Just to see our tomorrows” with a prayer to “Comfort me/Comfort the children/Comfort the night/Comfort the not reconciled”. It ends, though, with a note of optimism and that, while “Love is a dirty glacier/From which all rivers flow/Flow like silver/

Sink into the inevitable/Darkening as it slows”, “Singing you just might survive/Singing you might do just fine/Singing someday you’ll drink wine”. An album to uncork and drink deep.

Mike Davies

Michael Doherty on “On Our Way”: “Their music always seems to break whatever dark clouds might be hovering above or within”

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During this crazy time, like most people, I’ve been yearning to see some live music. And one of the bands I’ve missed most is I See Hawks In L.A. Going to one of their concerts is like hanging out with your best friends. Their music always seems to break whatever dark clouds might be hovering above or within. And so this is a band I’ve wanted to turn to throughout this perverse period, when nearly half the nation is still under the spell of a crooked and racist game show host, when people refuse to trust a vaccine but have no qualms about taking medicine for de-worming horses, when twisted congressmen liken violent insurrectionists to tourists. Things are positively bizarre out there. We desperately need I See Hawks In L.A. to help balance things out. Well, these guys used the time of isolation to put together a fantastic album, On Our Way. And, yes, they did it remotely. On Our Way features all original material, and on some of these tracks the band gets some help from special guests, including Brantley Kearns and the guys from Double Naught Spy Car. The band is made up of Rob Waller on vocals, guitar and synths; Paul Lacques on guitar, lap steel, autoharp, mandolin and backing vocals; Paul Marshall on bass and vocals; and Victoria Jacobs on drums and vocals.

They open the album with a cheerful and pleasant-sounding country tune titled “Might’ve Been Me.” This is exactly what we need. This song has a familiar sense about it, like a song that is already at home in our ears, and so able to ease us away from the current troubles. Rob Waller’s vocal approach has that warm and friendly sound that makes his voice one of the absolute best in music these days. This track features some wonderful work by Dave Zirbel on pedal steel. “Don’t feel bad, he’s not mad, he’s just insane/Standing in the torrential rain.” That’s followed by the album’s title track, “On Our Way,” which has an easygoing vibe. “Winter comes, and we sleep all day/I don’t know if the spring is coming/All I know is I’m on my way.” Those lines are followed by a line many of us can relate to: “Growing old and you’re waiting for wisdom.” One thing that often strikes me about these musicians is the way they seem to easily connect with their audience, and on a level that is beyond what the lyrics convey, like they’re meeting us in some unidentified and universal place that they have staked out. “All we know is we’re on our way.”

“Know Just What To Do” opens with some exciting and interesting work by Brantley Kearns on fiddle. I am always so happy to hear him play. After that, the song kind of eases in with some sweet work on acoustic guitar, and it features an absolutely beautiful vocal performance. “Stars are shining/Your love is blinding/I’m coming home to you.” This is a wonderful song, an immediate favorite of mine. There is something soothing about this song. It is such a relief to hear this music that I ended up in tears the first time I listened to this track, I don’t mind admitting. Though it is Rob Waller’s voice that is at the heart of this song, this track also features some glorious and strange instrumental sections, and I love the way things slide back into those sweeter sections from there. Richie Lawrence adds some nice work on accordion on this track. Then “Mississippi Gas Station Blues” comes on heavier. This is an unusual and surprising one, and the lines are delivered as spoken word. “You don’t have to love me, but you’re gonna have to choose/The name in my heart, the name on my chest/Is standing in the doorway, and she wants to confess.”

Victoria Jacobs takes a turn at lead vocals for “Kensington Market,” which she wrote. This is a completely enjoyable song, in large part because of Victoria’s vocal approach and style, which brings to mind certain singers of the 1960s. This is a sweet and mellow trip. It’s followed by “Kentucky Jesus,” a song about Muhammad Ali’s stance against the draft. Here are the opening lines: “He threw his medals in the river/He took on the war machine/He did not bend, in fact he floated like a bee” (the last a play on his famous line, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”). They follow that with another song about an influential figure, “Geronimo.” “I’m not retreating, I’m considering direction.” This track features more good work on pedal steel.

“Stealing” is a beautiful and gentle song that reminds me a bit of Gordon Lightfoot at moments. Old Californio’s Woody Aplanalp and Rich Dembowski join the group for this one. “Ain’t no heaven, no burning hell/Just a boat across a troubled sea with no fortune to tell.” This line also stands out: “But I don’t mind running if you’ll say you’ll run with me.” There is also some humor to this song, in the lines “Come October, we’ll be sober/Come November, we’ll remember,” which made me laugh out loud the first time I heard them. That’s followed by “If I Move,” which also shows the band’s sense of humor. Check out these lines, which opens the song: “Drove by the McDonald’s where we decided not to get married/And the Denny’s where we said what the hell/There’s the parking lot where you told me you were pregnant/I’m beginning to know this town too well.” Dave Zirbel contributes more good work on pedal steel here.

Even before its excellent and apt opening line, “It’s never been easier to lose your mind,” I am totally digging “Radio Keeps Me On The Ground,” with that cool rhythm. “There’s never been a lonelier time” is another line that speaks to our experiences during the pandemic. And soon the band promises us, “And this will pass by and by.” Ah yes, but when? Music has certainly been a key element in keeping me sane during these distressing times. Great Willow’s James Combs and Ed Barguiarena join them on this track. Then Double Naught Spy Car joins them for the album’s closing track, “How You Gonna Know?” This song’s odd and unusual opening draws me in. It has a groovy and cool beat, plus some interesting vocal work. I love how this band, after all these years, is still taking chances, and creating interesting material. And I’m looking forward to seeing them perform these songs in concert.

CD Track List

  1. Might’ve Been Me
  2. On Our Way
  3. Know Just What To Do
  4. Mississippi Gas Station Blues
  5. Kensington Market
  6. Kentucky Jesus
  7. Geronimo
  8. Stealing
  9. If I Move
  10. Radio Keeps Me On The Ground
  11. How You Gonna Know?

On Our Way is scheduled to be released on August 27, 2021.

Alternate Root Reviews “On Our Way”

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I See Hawks in L.A. (from the album On Our Way available on Western Seed Records) (by Bryant Liggett)
Twenty years in and I See Hawks in L.A. continue to define Americana, giving a broad definition of the term. Blues, Folk and Western Roots music stand up in front of the line but I See Hawks in LA’s Americana includes Gospel, jangle, and Roots Psychedelia. Their latest in On Our Way, the record that stretches the young term that is Americana with The Hawks Cosmic Country. “Might’ve Been Me” has a mandolin heavy intro that rolls into a newgrass shuffle while the title track brings a harmony-rich Roy Orbison-influenced ballad into On Our Way.  There is down tempo, Gothic folk with screeching fiddle introductions in “Know Just What To Do”, dirty gut-bucket Blues on “Mississippi Gas Station Blues”, and western noir with a storybook vibe in “Geronimo”.

While the aforementioned are right up the A(mericana) -word alley, they throw a didn’t-see-it-coming curveball with “Kensington Market”, a beautiful, drifting dose of Dream Pop with psychedelic meanderings, the tune’s vocals handled by drummer Victoria Jacobs. It’s a hip addition to a sonically diverse recording. Dream Pop continues into the album closer but sharpens the sound to produce an edge. “How You Gonna Know” is an experimental cut with Dub influences, a cut where the band had fun in the studio exercising an anything goes mentality to put together a tripped out closer.  The harmonies and Americana instrumentation are solid but the fun lies in where I See Hawks in L.A. go with explorations of Dub and New Wave as they stretch all genre’s boundaries. (by Bryant Liggett)

Americana Highways REVIEW: I See Hawks In L.A. “On Our Way”

by John Apice
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If you crossed the DNA of Gram Parsons, Pure Prairie League, Quicksilver Messenger Service, & Goose Creek Symphony with The Band – you’d have I See Hawks in L.A. This unit of eccentric fashion-plates can’t help but sound — entertaining. The band isn’t a group of newbies & it’s not that they’re retro. They’re not. They just have a familiar, intriguing sound. Their melody-fix brings ears back to another era in the coolest manner imagined.

I was buying the Holy Modal Rounders, Seatrain, & Mason Proffitt. Though those names may escape some readers — these bands had their day. I See Hawks In L.A. is filled with that richness, originality & excellence.

I See Hawks

“Know Just What To Do,” is exceptional. A beautifully melodic tune. No controversy, no angst, no anger, no showboating. Just good music. The 11-cut On Our Way (Independent-Drops Aug 27) is their 10th CD of innocent quicksilver moments with textured continuity. It possesses impressive clarity & the songs are striking. I’ve listened 3 times to this set – there’s always something I missed.

This Southern California alt-country/Americana/folk-rock band is precise. On “Mississippi Gas Station Blues,” they indeed come impressively close to The Band if Garth Hudson were the lead singer. But their own signature sound is potent & strikingly good.

“Kensington Market,” features the 60s Cowsills/Spanky & Our Gang – like vocals of drummer Victoria Jacobs. Mindful of the melodic richness of all the incredible 60s melodic pop hits of the era.

“Stealing,” has tints of The Band/Little Feat. The songwriting is exceptional throughout & the varied voices make for an interesting listen, unincumbered with sameness. “If I Move,” is where the Goose Creek Symphony connection is strongest. The presentation is like a 70s Charlie Gearheart song. That’s a compliment because his tunes were always distinctive & often played unflinchingly. (The medley of “Saturday Night at the Grange/Little Liza Jane”). I See Hawks in L.A. has that cohesion.

The closing quirky tune “How You Gonna Know,” is a classic waiting to happen. If Frank Zappa dabbled in alt-country this 8-minute country-noir could possibly be his contribution. A jambalaya of sound. “Love is a dirty glacier…” Indeed.

I See Hawks: Rob Waller (lead vocals/BG vocal/acoustic guitar/synth), Paul Lacques (guitars/lap steel/autoharp/jaw harp/mandolin/BG vocal), Paul Marshall (bass/BG vocal/lead vocal on “Radio Keeps Me On the Ground”), Victoria Jacobs (drums/tambourine/lead vocals) with Brantley Kearns (fiddle), Dave Zirbel (pedal steel), Richie Lawrence (accordion), Danny McGough (mellotron/Lowrey Celebration), Rich Dembowski (acoustic guitar/vocals), Woody Aplanalp (electric guitar/vocals), James Combs (acoustic guitars), & Ed Barguiarena (organ). Double Naught Spy Car plays on cut 11 – Joe Berardi (drums), Marc Doten (synths) & Marcus Watkins (electric guitar).

Color image: Americana Highways & I See Hawks in L.A.

I See Hawks In LA Are On Their Way To Your Musical Hearts With New Music

JP’s Music Blog

Arriving August 27th is the tenth studio album from the country/Americana band, I See Hawks In LA. Their new release titled “On Our Way” was recorded during the pandemic in the safest way possible, by sending drum tracks, vocals, guitar tracks and everything else through phones and using ProTools to bring all the music together. This recording was also a “life raft” for everyone in the band, who needed an outlet from the craziness of the lockdown and to be able to record new music was a saving grace for I See Hawks In LA.

The album begins with the swift acoustic strumming and violins of “Might’ve Been Me,” which starts things off on a positive note. The warming harmonies of “On My Way” feels like a warm blanket of comfort to help soothe you during these trouble times. There are a couple of songs (“Know Just What To Do” & “How You Gonna Know”) that showcase the depths of their performance, as I See Hawks In LA felt no restraints during this recording process to just let the music lead the direction of the album. The classic country feel of “Kentucky Jesus” will have you thinking that this band has been around much longer than two decades. I See Hawks In LA pick the tempo back up with the storied lyric of “Geronimo,” before finishing their new album with the country blues of “Radio Keeps Me On The Ground (Slight Return)” and the experimental, epic, eight-minute closer “How You Gonna Know?.” To find out more about I See Hawks In LA and their latest release “On Our Way,” please visit iseehawks.com.

Folk Radio UK Reviews “On Our Way”

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by Seuras Og

Western Seeds Record Company – 27 August 2021

It feels like I See Hawks in L.A. have been around forever, so it comes as quite a shock to discover they are almost entirely of this century, coming together in 1999. With an intrinsic feel for the ‘cosmic Americana’ that defined and delighted Gram Parsons. Their music, especially with the latest offering, ‘On Our Way‘, occupies a timeless space where ideas and influences jostle freely, unrestrained by fashion or fortune, contributing together a potent message for the moment.

Still featuring original members Rob Waller and Paul Lacques, who together write the bulk of the material with big contributions from Victoria Jacobs, now on drums, alongside longtime member Paul Marshall. All four sing, with Waller and Lacques playing a wealth of stringed instruments, handling guitars, dobro, lap steel, autoharp and mandolin between them. Oh, and jaw harp, which features memorably on one track. With Waller nominally the lead vocalist, all contribute to the backing without being averse to taking the occasional lead. As with most of their work, a host of friends and associates are also present, fleshing out the sound with fiddle, keyboards, accordion, pedal steel, and lots more guitars.

Like many 2020/1 releases, the unmistakable shadow of covid hangs over its gestation, and astonishingly, this entire ensemble piece was put together remotely. Waller and Lacques regularly got together online to flesh out and form the songs; the contributions and backing came in from all sources, iPhone included. The sleeve notes denote the recording credit to ‘Hawks in houses’. That it sounds so tight, in a homespun ‘live in the studio’ way, is no small miracle and is a credit to the skills of the performers and the production, which is also by the band.

When opener, ‘Might’ve Been Me’, starts with the lyric, ‘If you’re walking thru’ Sonoma’, you know already where you are likely to be heading. A mandolin led jangle, with swoops of steel shooting about Waller’s comfortable buckskin baritone, this is prime country-rock of a style before Americana was a word. It’s glorious, evocative of the latterday Byrds. This leads swiftly into the title track, which continues this mood, the melodicism, a dreamy summoning of times gone by, with electric 12-string making an appearance for good measure. Marshall’s bass is integral here, as it is throughout, never flashy, a steady, reassuring hand on the tiller that sounds simple yet is anything but.

A freeform wail of electric fiddle beckons in ‘Just Know What To Do’, demonstrating these are no one-trick ponies, then some backward electric guitar, ahead of a gentle ballad breaking through, over a strummed acoustic. But the background threat implied by the opening remains implicit, building gradually in the hinterland, the controlled vocal battling out the fiddle, a whirlwind just out of eyeshot. I don’t know if a pandemic theme is being invoked, especially within the raga-like middle section before the calm prevails, but that’s the sense it gave me.

I didn’t expect to find the spirit of Jim Morrison in this record, but ‘Mississippi Gas Station Blues’ certainly has his flavour, the song, a strange bastard cousin of the Beach Boys’ ‘Student Demonstration Time’. But Mike Love could never snarl like this. Scuzzy guitars and organ swagger around to put a faded leather jacket on the song. By complete contrast follows ‘Kensington Market’, which, yes, is that London one. With Victoria Jacobs on lead vocal, this is a delightful piece of 60s whimsy, with burbles of synth sneaking through in the background, paired with a baritone guitar. ‘Check out all the crazy people’, she sings, and you can bet there would be flowers in their hair.

‘Kentucky Jesus’ occupies a more old-timey feel, a story song, in waltz time, an oblique tale that asks more questions than it answers. At a faster lick, ‘Geronimo’ is another in the procession of songs about the prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Apache people, who, following his arrest, was pitifully paraded around by the authorities, and it is a worthy companion, with a very western feel and twang to it.

‘Stealing’, like ‘Kentucky Jesus’, channels the vocal ambience and songwriting of Canada’s Gordon Lightfoot and is a further sturdy construct of a song about living in the present, with a tune and message that lingers long after the closing bars. In the same vein is ‘If I Move’, which is full of classic two-part harmonies in the chorus, and steel counterpoints, on top of a gentle canter that is all Arizona and campfires.

I guess radio songs are thin on the ground these days, so it is the spirit of the truckers that are being kept alive with ‘Radio Keeps Me On the Ground (Slight Return)’, and the sort of station we are more familiar with from films and boxsets than our own UK experience. It always used to be a sure-fire way of getting your song played, but I am less sure that still applies. Perhaps the weakest song here, it risks an overall sense of comfiness that is, thankfully, totally dispelled by the final track, ’How You Gonna Know’. Entering with the aforesaid jaws harp and some decidedly solid and soulful drumming, before a hypnotically chanted harmony vocal, and spiky guitar: ‘And there’s no-one here to tell us what to do, we’re all on our own”. At his most Horse Latitudes, it is Jim Morrison again, but funkier and with more of a tune. Growing onward and upward, at over eight minutes, it is a transformational show-stopper. The drums have a hypnotic presence throughout, with the feel of a primaeval forest ceremony. Immaculate, fading into keyboard reverie.

Even ahead of the final track, this is a special record, crafted carefully and with love. Little surprise that no less than Dave Alvin has called the band ‘one of California’s hidden treasures’. But, with the eyes-wide and open-mouthed climax of ‘How You Gonna Know’, and the effect it leaves on you, a good and special record has become great and especial.

Blabber N’ Smoke Reviews “On Our Way”

By Paul Kerr

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Stuck in pandemic land, I See Hawks In L.A. essentially underwent a crash course in remote recording for their latest album, On Our Way. As the band say, they “began the studio game. ProTools, trial by error, error in abundance…Can we use an iPhone recording?”  Well, it’s graduation day today as they unveil the album and we can safely say that, were we marking it, it would get an A+.

On Our Way maintains the high standard set on previous releases by these wayward California hippies with their signature notes of high tide lines left behind by the likes of The Dead remaining intact. There is cosmic country, as on the pedal steel infused Geronimo, laid back musings on Stealing (which recalls classic Laurel Canyon days) and even some grungy junkyard ramblings on Mississippi Gas Station Blues which sounds like a mash up of Los Lobos and The Doors.

They set their stall out quite firmly on the flighty country rock of the opening song, Might have Been Me, which ripples along quite excellently and which is followed by the title track which has a slight touch of The Byrds to it in its chime. There’s a lengthy and somewhat freaky fiddle intro to Know Just What To Do which eventually subsides as the song sweetly flows into a fireside like homily. Warm and comforting for sure, but that fiddle buzz eventually returns as the song wavers between comfort and sonic malevolence. It’s as if John Cale had happened upon a David Crosby recording session. This sense of adventure is highlighted on the closing number, How You Gonna Know, an elongated eight minute trip dominated by intricate drum patterns accompanied with antipodean interruptions which eventually erupts into a tribal whelp.

Much more straightforward is the impressive Kentucky Jesus, a song which celebrates Muhammed Ali’s anti draft stance, and drummer Victoria Jacobs offers us the paisley patterned psychedelia of Kensington Market, revisiting territory she explored on the Hawks last album. If it’s Americana then there has to be a travelogue song and the band deliver another excellent slice of cosmic country rock on If I Move which swoops along quite excellently name checking fast food joints chock-full of memories of a lost love, the narrator lost in an endless highway, fuelled by despair. Quite wonderful.

Terrascope Reviews “On Our Way”

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On Our Way is the new album from Californian country rock group I See Hawks In LA, this is their tenth album and for me their best to date. The band consists of Rob Waller on lead vocals, acoustic guitar and synth. Paul Lacques on guitars, lap steel, autoharp, mandolin and jaw harp, Paul Marshall plays bass and Victoria Jacobs plays the drums, with all the band members contributing backing vocal harmonies. They formed at the tail end of the last century and have played many shows with artists like Chris Hillman, Dave Alvin, Lucinda Williams and many more through the years; indeed playing live is where they are at. This new album also sees contributions from ace fiddler Brantley Kearns, Danny McGough, Dave Zirbel and Woody Aplanalp from Old Californio, amongst others.

It kicks off with the mandolin led ‘Might’ve Been Me’, replete with pedal steel by Paul Zirbel which wouldn’t be too out of place on American Beauty/Workingman’s Dead era Grateful Dead, this is followed by the very catchy title track ‘On Our Way’, a very strong opening pair of songs. ’Know Just What To Do’ is slightly more expansive, it starts (and ends) with some mad twisted fiddling from Brantley and some backwards guitar, before unfolding into a gentle song of revelation. This is followed by the short, bluesy ‘Mississippi Gas Station Blues’. Victoria wrote and sings the wistful ‘Kensington Market’, a well placed indie rock song which details the various sights, sounds and people encountered there; it also features some fine organ from Danny.

The short ‘Kentucky Jesus’ is a song ostensibly about an alternative war hero and comes with contributions by Richie Lawrence on accordion. ‘Geronimo’ is a great dusty Native American tale imbued with plenty of telecaster, pedal steel and mandolin breaks; it is pure country rock gold. ‘Stealing’ is another little gem of a song and sees contributions on vocals and guitars from Old Californio’s Woody. ‘If I Move’ is sees the band playing a Byrds like jangly country rock song with oodles of pedal steel. ‘Radio Keeps Me On The Ground (Slight Return)’ maintains the standard, it ebbs and flows with plenty of room for the instruments to shine and deserves to be played on the radio but probably won’t, especially over here on this side of the Atlantic. The album closes out with the expansive, lightly psychedelic ‘How You Gonna Know’, a groovy rootsy rocker, heralding in a new tomorrow.  

(Andrew Young)