First Listen: High Country Hustle “New Old Roads”

First Listen is a feature where we sit back in a dark room, put our headphones on and push play while regurgitating our immediate feelings & emotions to a piece of work.

Just like the album name conveys, this new record came to me through old friends and old channels. Fiddler and vocalist David Delaney shared this new record from High Country Hustle with me a number of weeks back and I am just getting into it.

‘New Old Roads’ has a powerful drive and indelible groove through songs like Madeline the Quaker and New Old Roads. The former I could easily see becoming a campground jam mainstay. Infectious and vibey. But there is a keen balance here. Happy People, following up the slightly more frenetic Madeline with a powerful, but sense of ease about it. A brilliant ballad for the new age of bluegrass.

The 4 piece outfit exemplifies the traditions of bluegrass via potent harmonies and impressive swapped lead duties and man, I find myself especially taken by how seamlessly they move in and out of the shared lead vocal duties. Keep things interesting, while at the same time harnessing and grounding things with their hefty choral harmonies, foot stomping melodies and expertly executed solos. The flow of the record as a collection is a journey, a real trip that has the lively feeling of a late night festival set that washes over and rejuvenates you after baking in the sun all day. It’s palpable.

There is jubilance and a funk and soul that lives within the boundaries of these 10 tracks. Borrowing from the best of what the bluegrass genre has gifted to us and intertwining it with a contemporary feel and sound. This is the kind of band that you see on a festival stage, perhaps not knowing them beforehand but immediately finding a new lifelong favorite. Keep an eye (and ear) out for these fellas…