Locust Honey String Band
Album: He Ain't No Good
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 15
Website: http://www.locusthoney.com

All-female trio The Locust Honey String Band comes out of Swannanoa, North Carolina; nearby town Asheville plays host to a thriving music community as well as the long-running annual Mountain Dance & Folk Festival (founded by folklorist and performer Bascom Lamar Lunsford back in 1928).

The LHSB is but one of the current wave of acts who, directly inspired by old-time string band music, have passionately devoted themselves to keeping that tradition alive. If you've come across the Stairwell Sisters and Uncle Earl, you'll have a good idea of what to expect - well-drilled yet spontaneous and earthily vibrant playing (here fiddle, banjo, guitar and bass) and fresh-toned and enthusiastic raw-edged singing, all elements wholly authentic in spirit and execution and virtually guaranteed to satisfy fans of the genre.

The bulk of the trio's chosen material consists of covers of old-timey and early country classics, though you'd be hard pressed to pick out the one composition by the band's fiddler Chloe Edmonstone, the bluesy Her Ways, which is as idiomatic as they come. The trio's debut CD delivers a dozen vocal numbers and a small quotient of hard-driving instrumental cuts (highlight among which must surely be the fiery Hell Broke Loose In Georgia, originally the unchallenged province of Gid Tanner's Skillet Lickers, but Clyde Davenport's Lost Girl gets a good run for her money too).

Considering the comparatively small lineup, theirs is a full sound for all its brittle, edgy qualities, and Chloe and her colleagues (banjoist Ariel Dixon and guitarist Meredith Watson, augmented for much of the disc by bass player Andy Deaver Edmonstone) definitely kick up a storm when required. But they can soft-pedal too, as the wonderfully forlorn delicacy of the disc closer All The Time (a Kitty Wells number) proves. Another album standout that's a touch off the beaten old-timey track is the LHSB's rather unusual take on the famous Patsy Cline number Walking After Midnight (previously most incomparably covered by Cowboy Junkies on their seminal Trinity Sessions album), while the Louvins' Time Goes So Slow is also very nicely done.

The band's main selling point for many listeners steeped in the old-time groove will I suspect be the girls' excellent harmony vocal work. But their instrumental chops aren't to be underestimated: I particularly liked Chloe's tremendous fiddle attack, and the way it's so empathically and solidly underpinned by the banjo and guitar. If I've any minor reservations about this record, it's that the band's devotion to economy of expression leads to some tracks feeling a touch abruptly curtailed, even shortchanged, and, like the album as a whole, it all tends to be over rather too soon. (He ain't no good, huh? - go pull the other one!!)

David Kidman