Taste Test, Edition #9: The American Buffalo, Semler & more

Welcome to Taste Test, a review wrangling of SubmitHub-only gemstones.

“Huckleberry Road” by Huckleberry Road

Robbie James and Anthony Vairetta are just two good ole boys re-writing the rules of rock-infused country music. Out of Reno, Nevado, the two musicians and songwriters hits on all cylinders with the titular cut to their forthcoming new EP. “Huckleberry Road” chugs along like a manifesto scrawled in the dirt of some backwood road. James’ voice cuts clear and smooth, and paired with the rolling thunder of banjo, guitar and a choir of drums, the song is a shot of lightning to the touch. “I’m fishing for the good times / Pushing through the pain,” James sings, with a snarl growling in his throat.

“The Things You Cannot Own” by Martin & the Fall

It’s so easy to become suffocated and lost in this world. But it’s a far more painstaking, and subsequently bold, task to take a gamble on things that matter. Folk band Martin & the Fall poeticize the yearning down deep in their souls with “The Things You Cannot Own,” a delicate mid-tempo about navigating the sea of ruin for blissful, rejuvenating liberation. “Freedom is a simple act of letting go,” croons frontman Martin ⏤ swelling of band mate Chip Martin’s acoustic guitar and tightly-crafted harmony work from Tania Hancheroff scurry underneath. They lay all their cards on the table, and as a cut from their self-titled new EP, it’s a risk that pays off in vibrant spades.

“Parting Gifts (Goodbye, Sweet Lover)” by The American Buffalo

Josh Edward is no fool. Going by The American Buffalo, the Nashville singer-songwriter accepts his role as “a sad, bitter White Guy,” who just happens to write “a Dylan-esque, Beatles-esque kiss-off to his ex-girlfriend,” as he puts it. Sticking to such a surface-level epithet does severe disservice to the music itself, however. “Parting Gifts (Goodbye, Sweet Lover)” pulsates with big band horns, saloon-whipped piano and a howling lead vocal. “Every time I think of you, I’ll be so sad and blue,” he sings in an attempt to braid together both his throbbing heartache and skin-stinging bitterness. The song, which builds into an unruly Saturday night hoe-down, is another sampling of Edward’s forthcoming new record, Reflections, out in 2019.

“Code of the West” by The Lark & the Loon

Jeff Rolfzen and Rocky Steen-Rolfzen work their hands tirelessly in the soil of true American music. Their fingers bleed, and their clothes are stained with the earth’s fire-charred tears. But make no mistake, they remain squared and centered on a mission. With “Code of the West,” the opening track from their new album, Homestead Hands, the pair chronicles a devilish and twisted western tale of blood thirst and revenge. “So many men have heard the call / Become their final seconds,” they sing, awash in melancholic banjo. “The steeple freeze and bends his knees / You must take what you can carry / I’ll paint my barn, I’ll paint it red / So, you may fight instead.”

“Santa Mira” by Bear Paw

A sense of unease and angst creeps into Jon Fazal’s bones. Lead singer of folk group Bear Paw, Fazal is frightened of living a ho-hum life, one showered with mundane peoples and things, and armed with fellow musicians James Hinks, Alex O’Hare and Jon Bennalick, he wrestles his demons to the ground as best he can. “Santa Mira” is a dreamy and earnest meditation on soothing the voices in his head that tell him to run away from his life and quench some vein-sucking adventure. But it’s the music itself that drains such foolhardy notions from his mind and replenishes his destiny in the here and now. Harmonic, guitar and various other strings weep in blubbering whimpers. It’s as hopeful as it is altogether soul-wrenching.

“Oh My Girl” by Semler

There are few songwriters who can truly expose new layers of heartache. Semler manages to steady her pen with pointedly poetic language with “Oh My Girl,” a ballad broken into shards from boot stomps and ghost-lit harmony. “I wish we put this town in our rearview,” she snuffs out these possibilities in hushed coos. She finally lays to rest a former relationship as if saying a eulogy, and it’s magnificently haunting. From her new EP, Six Feet Under the Same, the song sees the queer folk artist a bit unnerved but somehow regaining strength she had long abandoned, tenderly rising from the ash and cleaning tears from her eyes.

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