Cera Impala & the New Prohibition
Album: Higher Place
Label: Bluebird
Tracks: 11
Website: www.ceraimpala.com

That banjo-packing Washington State songstress Cera Impala decided to make a home in Berlin makes perfect sense on the evidence of this strangely strange album of blackened bluegrass, the like of which the Meat Puppets once briefly excelled at.

The likes of Crooked Still or Nickel Creek probably fill their canteens at the same water hole, then head off to the mountains to make more music, or dip their toes in the swamp to make some more. In The Pines wreaks of authenticity, Dancing In The Moonlight could be the anthem of a party you never want to fall asleep at, Orange Blossom Special is delivered with due deference, while the title track co-opts a Charlie Daniels fiddle line and feeds it to a bourbon-soaked liturgy of distress.

Cluck Old Hen and Foggy Window Backup accent the hoedown throwdown in the company of violinist Dirk Ronneburg, the latter in the long tradition of American songs about cars - somehow you couldn't imagine the same feeling from a ditty about an unreliable (was there any other kind?) Vauxhall Chevette!

Cera and the band are to relocate to Edinburgh later this year where they're sure to imbibe a whole slew of new influences.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk