Karling, Bound for Nowhere
Karling Abbeygate picks up where she left off, but this time with all original songs. Her new set of 14 pseudo-old-time country numbers are by turns Patsy Cline-style traditional (the excellent "What Another Lovely Day" and "Can't You See I've Fallen"), rockabilly ("Dig Baby Dig!"), loopy "Crazy Mable" (sic), and even touched by disparate styles like Dixieland and carnivalia.
Working with two different studio bands, one with traditional country-western instrumentation and the other featuring Micah Hulscher's aggressive organ playing, Karling covers a variety of bases with a single steady, one-of-a-kind stride, even if that stride may at times seem to have issued from the Ministry of Silly Walks. Her unusual vocal delivery sometimes feels more Asian than plantation, a kind of kewpie-doll belt that serves some songs better than others but is certainly fearless.
Other highlights include the torchy, tinkling ballad "The Valley," the bouncy "Right Side," and the sad and peculiar "Take This Take This." And some songs, like "Back in My Baby's Arms," really sound like they could have been written in the 1920s.
Trevor Alguire, Now Before Us
The Canadian country singer-songwriter is back with a strong follow-up to his fine Thirty Year Run. Many of these songs are very traditional-sounding, but Alguire uses country's typical sounds and song structures forthrightly, without pretense or self-consciousness, and the songs roll easily into your brain on the magic carpet of his honeyed baritone. "Are You Ready" evokes the cycle of life and announces we're deep in the roots of where all words and music come from: "Are you ready...for your life to come full circle/And never be the same again?"
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