The big and most pleasant suprise of the week was the release of a new Ryan Tanner album Promised Land. Together Is Where We Belong was such a beautiful album a few years back and songs like Days To Think Of You have been a part of my DNA ever since. Oh how I still love the peaceful hurt of that song.

New album Promised Land sounds equally amazing and it’s available at Bandcamp (name your price). Kiki Jane Sieger deliver beautiful backing vocals to some of the songs. Their voices fit together so beautifully and lift these already great songs to a new level (I hope we get something new from The Souvenirs as well, because I wouldn’t mind hearing more of Kiki’s voice). Ryan Tanner has again created a special album and I know I will be resting my tired body in the peaceful comfort of this album.

And here’s that Days to Think Of You from the earlier album. This could well be a song on that 15 anniversary thing I started today. So brilliant.

Ryan Tanner Website

I’m still way behind with these blog writings. Here’s an album that I’ve been enjoying all summer long. It’s the new and excellent Big Shoals album Hard Lessons. Big Shoals are from Gainesville, Florida and have created a pretty convincing americana album. Some of it is highly entertaining and some of it is very moving. Here’s an example from both categories. Union Son and You Ain’t Nothing Like The Girls Back Home. You can guess which one falls into which category. Obviously most songs fall into both categories. Union Son features mr. Todd Beene from the Glossary fame on pedal steel. Hard Lessons came out July 15th and can be bought from their website.

Big Shoals Website

I wrote about the greatness of the new Austin Lucas album a few days ago. A revisit is already in order, because a new music video just surfaced. This is for one of the best songs on the album, Wrong Side of the Dream that features Lydia Loveless on co-vocals. This is also a co-write with another great songwriter Jodi James. The album Between the Moon and the Midwest is now out on Last Chance / At The Helm Records.

Austin Lucas Website