The Foghorns: A Diamond As Big As The Motel 6 (2009)

The boy Bart Cameron and friends return with an album that manages to simultaneously inhabit a Midwestern, dusty landscape and poke the genre with sticks til it twitches and grunts with irritation. There are many moments of self-searching on here, wry without a hint of forced nakedness generally, including the solo I Hope I Don’t Do You Wrong – timeless sentiments with suitably unpolished guitarwork underpinning them. When in duet with Katie Quigley there’s a hint of Cowboy Junkies to matters; Sleepy Waltz or the excellent Old Bachelors In Cleveland could be taken directly off The Trinity Sessions, for one, such are their simple, easy-resonant shuffly soul. Highlight of the lot might just be 80 Proof, a song that commences with an excited heartbeat and early-evening saunter and winds its winsome way around in a hazy shimmer, belying a seriously swiney tale of alcoholism..