Vandoliers, Ameri-Kinda, 2015

Album Review

It's not like a regular thing around here, but Fridays seem to be the days that I use to catch up on stuff I've had in my backlog for a while. That often takes the form of round-ups of notable releases from New Jersey bands. Today, I'm looking a little further afield to bring your attention to something from Dallas, TX.

Vandoliers are the latest project of Joshua Fleming. I first encountered Fleming when his band, The Phuss, came through Asbury Park and played a hot and sweaty show in a loft on Main Street. The Phuss are a relentless and dirty power trio whose hard-driving On The Prowl was a perfect match for that steamy space with its beer-soaked floor. But, for 2015, Fleming decided he wanted to make a country record. The result is Ameri-Kinda, an album whose title reflects almost perfectly Vandoliers' simultaneous debt to and departure from traditional Americana music.

Opener "Runaway Sons" comes down more on the side of southern rock than country. That makes sense as an opener as Fleming references his past in a rock and roll band. With "Don't Tell Me What to Do," things make the transition to full-on barroom country music. "I'm a punk, but a Texan to the T," sings Fleming over Travis Curry's fiddle and some twanging guitars.

"Wild Flower" brings in the Southwestern sounds of Corey Graves on trumpet as Fleming sings forlornly to the love he won't see again "until the good lord guides me home." Pedal steel and fiddle give a wide open feeling to "Joy Ride," a ballad comparing a relationship to a road trip.

"Hank" bounces along on top of organ, banjo, and bass as Fleming sings of his beautifully tough, tomboyish daughter fiancée. "Blaze of Glory" has the big, outsized feel implied by its title and, once again, straddles that space between country and rock. Things close with the dark, dirty blues of "Sinner Like Me."

I've spent a fair amount of time in Texas for a Jersey boy. My father-in-law lives in Houston, and the day job has brought me to Irving / Plano / Dallas relatively often. I used to think that, as a Northeastern, liberal snob, I'd feel out of place in Texas. But I've always enjoyed my time and felt pretty much at home there. Great food, wonderful people, and great American music.

On Ameri-Kinda, Vandoliers tap into several of the sounds I've always associated with Texas -- from dirty, noisy rock to sweet, country ballads to gritty blues. I don't know if what they've come up with could really be called its own genre, but it is floating somewhere in the spaces between Americana, rock, and country. And it works.

Ameri-Kinda is out today. You can grab it over at Vandoliers' Bandcamp page. If any of my Dallas / Fort Worth area friends are reading, Vandoliers are celebrating tonight with a release show at Three Links Deep Ellum in Dallas with Slim Cessna's Auto Club and Daniel Markham.