Some people are simply blessed with names that match their chosen professions. Singer/guitarist James Low is a case in point. His band, The James Low Western Front, who hail from Portland, Oregon, deliver a new album, Whiskey Farmer on February 21st. It’s a record of depth and subtlety, with that classic assuredness that only great American bands seem capable of.
Low himself explains the album’s themes, with the central character (possibly based on Low himself) as someone who “always done things kind of right – did OK in school, went to a generic college, racked up a shitload of debt, and got a job to pay off the debt. He drinks to forget. He alienates the ones who love him best, and just cannot believe that this is all there is to life.”
This is a record that sits proudly next to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, and the finest work of Chris Whitley and Steve Earle, as a personal statement of struggle and the search for meaning in modern life. Any which way, it’s the first release of 2012 to stake a claim for album of the year.
