If you've never heard of Milton Mapes, it's no big surprise. Just don't show up to their live gigs expecting to find Milton: the band takes their name from lead singer/songwriter Greg Vanderpool's grandfather. Their songs are straight from the dustbowl heartache fused with a country-rock sensibility that any bartender in a small town saloon would be glad to have playing on the jukebox.
Theirs are songs not about people or places or situations, just the moments that we all go through in our lives as we strive to find that perfect place to belong. Together with stalwart Roberto Sanchez and a host of guest musicians, Vanderpool spins his songs into a golden second album, easily sticking on the mind and in the heart. The album opens rather slow and deceivingly on "Great Unknown," a somber note about giving it all up to look for the love you've never had. On the next track, betrayal takes over, and for a moment it sounds like a veiled threat: "maybe you're gone, ready or not/maybe you're here, maybe you're not." The harmonica and pained vocal over a crunch Wilco had but lost almost do it alone, but the harmony on the second verse just slays. In fact, the album settles in for a good six songs of perfection before it hits a misstep, and even then the song in question ("Palo Duro") isn't so much bad as it just sounds like filler to make up time before the next great song kicks in. It does and they do on "This Kind of Danger" and "The Sad Lines," my favorite song of recent memory from an artist I've never heard before now. Milton Mapes, you see, is as much a character as he is a namesake, and his integrity, weakness, loneliness, and history are all over Westernaire. This time in his shoes is a ride of ups and downs, and I hope there's more tales in this vein saved up for next time.
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