Steep Canyon Rangers – Out In The Open (Ramseur)

0

After a stint with comedian Steve Martin, American bluegrass band Steep Canyon Rangers are back to what they do best – beautiful harmonies over heartbreakingly good music.

After the first listen to the perfectly formed 46-minute Out In The Open, memories of having the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack on high rotate flooded back. And just like T Bone Burnett’s bestseller the Rangers 12th Americana album offers something for everyone with bluegrass, folk, country and rock’n’roll all on display.

The five-piece have fine-tuned their style since starting in college bars at the turn of the century, and their precise playing is evident on well-executed instrumentals during the likes of Best of Me.

For this record the group wanted a ‘spontaneous sound’ and Billy Bragg and Bonnie Raitt producer Joe Henry kept the band to minimal takes. Rangers co-founder Graham Sharp has a hand in writing eight of the album’s dozen tracks, including two standouts Can’t Get Home and Roadside Anthems.

Your ears prick up to the sharp fiddle that opens the melancholic Can’t Get Home. The song tells the story of a displaced returned soldier, who at one stage notices a painted over pencil line that showed his age at nine. That’s the band’s strength across the album, small stories that speak volumes.

The longest track on the album Roadside Anthems is classic Americana, you can just imagine the band in a circle facing each other (which they supposedly did) as harmonies soar and fingers fly on extended solos.

But it’s the stunning cover of Bob Dylan’s war protest song Let Me Die in My Footsteps that sends shivers. Originally written about fallout shelters during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the track is just as powerful today as it was over half a century ago.

This is country as it gets with themes of loss, regret and sadness. The wistful Going Midwest, ‘There’s no need to tell me you can’t go’, and the sentimental opener Farmers and Pharoahs, ‘I learnt the hard way now it’s too late’.

But there’s hope in them there hills, Sharp’s rollicking banjo in Let Me out of This Town and the barbershop-quartet qualities of Shenandoah Valley keep things

With half the tracks feeling like they’ve been around forever Out In The Open made me think of another country-influenced film, Crazy Heart. Jeff Bridges character reflects, “That’s the way it is with good ones, you’re sure you’ve heard them before.”

Clayton Barnett

The 13th Floor
Latest posts by The 13th Floor (see all)