Kyle Kimbrell’s sound has been described as “cosmic American music,” that ranges from the swinging front-porch blues to the spaced-out Americana/alt-country, and it’s all here on “Easy Truths”.
From the gorgeous opener “Interstate Living”, laid back but confident, this is a collection of songs that have all day and they aren’t going anywhere.
“Shape I’m In” offers that “I can’t find the words I need, it’s a lack of intelligence”, but that’s palpably not true, and more to the point, Kimbrell has an lovely, rich voice, somewhere close to Jason Ringenberg.
His last one was recorded with Matt Patton of Drive-By Truckers, and there’s some of that about the rock n roll of “Holy Bombs”- this collection, though, was recorded back at home in Birmingham, Alabama (not the one that I live just outside) and there’s something of the south about “Punk Rock Girl”, although it has trippy air that you might think was the preserve of Wilco.
The best thing about this, mind you, is that there are no rules. Not one. “Poor Donny” adds some bar-room piano, a filthy harmonica and a working class air that might tempt Dan Baird out of retirement.
If Donny was “15 deep” at the saloon bar, then “Bar Rat” is world weary. The character is “throwing my aggression around at the bar” and you sense it’ll envelop him at some point.
And I say “character” because you get the sense that a bit like Springsteen, he’s expressing his worldview through the eyes of others. “In The Shit (Phil’s Song)” sees him sing “I’ve given up dreaming big, from my place down in the shit, I am coming home”. And maybe accepting your lot is the point here, the point of “Easy Truth’s?”
Whether that’s the case or not, there’s a bit of the brilliant Bohannons about the way that “Take My Rest” lurks around, and “Singing A Tune” is timeless as Americana gets.
Kyle Kimbrell has simply mastered this in a way few do. “Letters From Home” wraps its reflection (“how long has it been since last time?) in a hook that somehow sticks in, and “New World Order” proves something that we haven’t really mentioned yet, and that’s just how good the music is alongside this.
There are only two songs over four minutes long here, and the last one, “Wine Of Youth” is one of them and its got quite the heavy chorus. “Oh to be young again, with nothing but life to give” he sings. Yet it does sound hopeful, somehow, like it was cathartic and if music this good is being made, life can’t be all bad?
In the early 2000s I was bored of nu-metal, so looked for other things, and found Americana, thanks to bands like Whiskeytown, Son Volt and countless more. It would be amazing if “Easy Truths” did the same for others a quarter of century on.
It deserves to be talked about in the same breath as those bands, that’s for sure.
Rating 9/10
