Slow Country

Connor Lynch

Slow Country

Devil Town Tapes

02 April 2024
Web Exclusive

By Mark Moody

Pull any average singer off an Appalachian porch and surround them with fiddle, guitar, piano, mandolin, banjo, accordion, pedal steel, and you're likely to find something very nice to hear. In the case of Detroit-based Conor Lynch, half of those instruments are played by him and all in support of a dozen subtly crafted and beautiful songs that put him well above average. It doesn't hurt that Lynch's partner in crime, Ryan McDonald, is a sound engineer with a degree and also plays various instruments. Slow Country is Lynch's fourth album and one where everything goes smoothly.

Lynch spent his youth on the more rural pinky finger of Michigan's left-handed glove, and much of the album concerns himself with a scratchy sense of unease. The hangdog feel of “Steam Whistle” and the more progressive “Tworailsmeet” confirm this. The album opens with his longest song. The nearly seven-minute “Psithurism,” which in its name evokes some of the song titles Buck Meek likes to use, doesn't feel like forced training. The title refers to the rustling of leaves and the origin from the country of the quiver that naturally holds everything together. “Watch the waves move through the grass, white ribbons over green and gold glass,” Lynch sings as the song is accented with fiddle and pedal steel, before a swirling interlude pulls us into a more complex second half.

A lot from Slow Country it manages to be understated and so are the instruments. Although there's a lot on offer, it's all used sparingly and presented as the album unfolds. Piano on the country lope of “Hill,” banjo leads the indie folk “Cockaigne,” while the sonic poem of “Long Ways From Home” highlights McDonald on accordion.

Echoes of the past inform but do not overwhelm Lynch's work. His vocals share the same weary wisdom as Jeff Tweedy, but one of the album's highlights, “Creator,” draws more from Tweedy's uncle, Jay Farrar. Sonically, “Creator” feels of a piece with Farrar's rendition of the ancient “Moonshiner” at Uncle Tupelo's March 16-20, 1992. But the issue is more timely with Farrar's reading of The Louvin Brothers' devastating 'Atomic Power', from the same album. In the song's opening lines, Lynch chillingly muses, “I know one day I'll hear jets and they'll scream across the sky.” Other points of contact are flavored by Lynch's exposure to Southern rock when he was younger. The tangle of brightly colored guitars on “Tworailsmeeet” and the song's title, resemble “Two Trains” by the late great Lowell George. And the aptly named title track has a melodic trace of a super-slowed-down “Tuesday's Gone,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Whether lighting up for the regions, as Lynch likes to do, relaxing in the spring air, or contemplating the end times, Slow Country he is a perfect companion for everyone. Lynch shares the same innate melodic ability of bandmate Greg Mendez, but the album's open country tinge is more in line with underground folksters like Fust and Sluice. Words like beautiful and wonderful are not heard nearly enough when asked for. Slow Country fits each piece of these descriptors to a T. (www.conor-lynch.bandcamp.com)

Author Rating: 8/10