There’s something pleasingly unfashionable about The Jardani Crow Band. While half the planet appears to be chasing fifteen-second hooks and songs designed to soundtrack somebody pointing at captions on TikTok, this Asheville outfit sound like they’ve turned up with battered guitars, a few stories and absolutely no intention of rushing anywhere. Her Song is folk-Americana built for people who still like albums to feel like journeys rather than playlists.
That attitude is stamped all over opener Fairytale of New Orleans. There’s dirt beneath its fingernails and a lived-in warmth that immediately establishes Michael Wheat and Rip Kurtain as musicians more interested in character than polish. The New Orleans influence bubbles underneath without becoming fancy dress, while Midnight Moon leans further into the band’s gritty blues side. Its really Springsteen this one and I like it, there’s genuine atmosphere here.
Heart Attack gives proceedings a welcome kick. The songwriting tightens, the melodies arrive quicker and suddenly you understand why this lot have kept finding their way back into bands together. Wheat and Kurtain have the sort of musical relationship you can’t manufacture on a Zoom call, ironically enough considering how much of this project has been assembled remotely.
Love Section stretches things out again, bringing a Wilco-ish looseness into proceedings. The playing is excellent, but this is also where one of the album’s weaknesses becomes apparent.
The Jardani Crow Band occasionally love the road so much they forget listeners might want to reach the destination. A little more ruthless editing would sharpen some of these songs enormously. Americana can breathe without wandering around the house looking for its car keys.
Sand & Broken Shells, It’s beautifully weathered music, carrying the feeling of something remembered rather than something performed. Rappaccini’s Daughter then brings a more indie vibe into the record and is one of its more intriguing moments.
There’s enough musical sophistication lurking underneath the folk-rock exterior to explain those Steely Dan influences without the band ever sounding like they’re trying to show off their record collection.
Then comes Her Song, the album’s emotional centrepiece. Built around the idea that love, dancing and music might still connect people despite the increasingly ridiculous number of things humanity finds to argue about, it could easily have become unbearably sentimental.
Thankfully, it doesn’t. Wheat’s vocal keeps things grounded while the harmonies give the chorus genuine communal weight.
The remarkable bit is how it was made. Asheville, New Orleans, Portugal, Malaysia and Texas are all represented on the recording, yet Her Song doesn’t sound like five musicians firing WAV files into a Dropbox folder. Sergio da Silva’s drums, Ally Rozario’s backing vocals and Sam Choate’s guitar sit naturally around Wheat and Kurtain. Technology might have assembled the room, but the chemistry inside it still sounds human.
Train rolls back towards traditional Americana territory with an easy momentum,Pathway to Hell is a jazzy dirty blues club track thats self sufficient, before Come What May pushes the emotional dial upwards. Again, the performances are convincing enough that you forgive the occasional tendency towards familiarity.
That’s important because this sort of music lives dangerously close to cliché: trains, moons, broken things and roads have been keeping Americana lyricists employed since approximately the invention of denim.
The album is at its best when some grit interrupts the warmth, and another layer of menace here would have given the closing stretch more teeth. Instead, the band occasionally remain slightly too polite when you want them to kick the saloon doors open.
Bonus track Heart Attack (Reprise) brings us back around rather neatly, revisiting one of the record’s strongest melodic ideas without feeling entirely unnecessary.
What ultimately carries the album is its lack of cynicism. The Jardani Crow Band clearly believe music matters, friendships matter and songs can still connect strangers separated by thousands of miles. That could sound painfully earnest in less capable hands.
There are moments where the album could lose a minute, tighten a chorus or swap tasteful restraint for something nastier. But as an introduction to this latest chapter for Wheat and Kurtain, Her Song has heart, craft and enough Asheville grit and New Orleans groove to make the band’s motto feel justified rather than printed on a T-shirt.
It isn’t reinventing Americana. It sounds more like a bunch of experienced musicians remembering why they wanted to make the stuff in the first place. Sometimes that’s more valuable.
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