Lincoln Durham
Album: The Shovel Vs. The Howling Bones
Label: Rayburn Publishing
Tracks: 11
Website: www.lincolndurham.com

As dry and dusty as the small town desert Texas it immediately invokes, Lincoln Durham's first album blisters with a creeping sense of survival against the odds. Like a threadbare vulture perched on a dustbowl cactus, this is every bit as American Gothic as Grant Wood's famed painting (as opposed to anything to do with Gerard Way and his kind) laced with a black cat bone and three fingers of rye.

Lincoln's parched vocals veer from the sweet hopeful cadence of Clementine to the desiccated rumble of Reckoning Lament, but the record's wretched heart and soul lies in the knowing production of Ray Wylie Hubbard and George Reiff who have ably captured the sparse guitars (an array of vintage acoustics) and sundry percussion tools (boxes, trash cans, bird feeders) to create a sonic environment that feeds Durham's storytelling.

This brand of badlands blues summons a bubbling cauldron of influences from Son House to ZZ Top; Leon Redbone to Townes Van Zandt; even a flavour of a Tom Waits or a John Lee Hooker. But for all the heritage, Lincoln Durham has fashioned a sound of his own that calls out for wider attention.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk