country album reviews
In this issue
Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs, All Her Fault
Like a generation of Brits before her, Holly Golightly finds inspiration in American pre-rock forms of blues, country and R&B. A London punk-rock girl with a love of ’50s/’60s R&B, this former Headcoatee has collaborated with Billy Childish, the White Stripes and Rocket From the Crypt. Since 2007, her dance partner has been Texas multi-instrumentalist Lawyer Dave (a.k.a. the Brokeoffs). Living on a farm outside of Athens, GA, rescuing horses, the duo has fashioned some lively shuffles, stomps, waltzes and creepers from America’s deepest, darkest corners. Golightly’s voice, which critic Douglas Wolk once compared to a transistor radio, has the ability to inhabit a variety of characters in conversational styles, and her versatile guitar playing makes the songs come alive, from the swampy New Orleans-ish “For All That Ails You” to the salty “No Business” (which could be the don’t-take-no-mess younger sister of “Fist City”) to “Can’t Pretend” (where Golightly opens the library and reads all the country fakers). Take that, Duck Dynasty. —Sara Sherr
Lydia Loveless, Somewhere Else
The somber black artwork of Somewhere Else is a far cry from the gasoline-swigging cartoon adorning Loveless’s 2011 Bloodshot debut, Indestructible Machine, perhaps suggesting some newfound mellowing or maturation—at the ripe old age of 23—for the Ohio-bred hellraiser. Maybe. Loveless jettisons her jet-fueled cowpunk and honky-tonk showboating here for a streamlined set of straight-up, rootsy rock ‘n’ roll. These songs, punchy as ever, don’t lean quite so heavily on unhinged, whiskey-soaked abandon. Still, it takes mere seconds into rip-snorting opener “Really Wanna See You” before someone gives her some blow—inciting not a brawl, but a wistful phone call—and the energy barely slackens from that point on, even through several bleary, heart-worn ballads, with Loveless’s piercing, twang-heavy wail summoning Michelle Shocked, Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams at their most ragged. Only where Williams couches a masturbation ode like “Right In Time” in sly, elegant poetry, Loveless lays it all out there on “Head.” —K. Ross Hoffman