Sort of like a poor man’s Josh Ritter, but in a year with no new Ritter release, I’ll take it
Solid outing from one of my favorites -- the horns grew on me.
Kind of creepy, but kind of good.
A cozy album which turned out to be better for winter listening than summer.
More restrained than some of their earlier albums (meaning less yelling), it’s a rollicking combination of piano and string section ballads, bluegrass picking, earnest singing, and often quite striking lyrical declarations
No Patterson Hood but Cooley rocked twice as hard to make up for it ... this was a very close category, though, with The Avett Brothers, the Hold Steady, and Josh Ritter all very close
Not that I expected much at this point, but still. I did kind of like Magic two years back, but couldn’t get into this one.
He played a bunch of new songs at the show, dark and acoustic and pretty freakin’ good.