Drift Mouth - Little Patch of Sky (2018)

Poster is a guy who continues to surprise me. Yes, middle-age bears broken backs and heavy bones, but survivors can still conjure up those continued leaps of faith that came in youth. Case in point, Drift Mouth's latest album, Little Patch of Sky, and the lead blunt force of Wake You Up. Anyone here in Columbus who may have stopped listening should reconcile. Anyone outside of our concrete-belt, stream it, or better yet, buy some physical proof of this song. It makes Son Volt sound trite, Jawbreaker a bit too boujee, and the Jayhawks stuffed with hokum -- in essence, there's authenticity that mixes prime '90s Albini-ed angles with Harry Smith in the holler. If you're from here you'd understand in an instant. Anyone outside of the concrete-belt, well, it'll sink in. Poster is a historian. Celebrating revivalism, keeping ghosts alive. His group follows a cadence towards a particular nostalgic seam that's dug in, barely there, and thus, vaguely remembered. Poster can do a gallant country gentleman as on Porch Cat, -- soaked in the dark reflections of faded neon off of slick black tabletops -- in the honkey-tonk, or better, dives of Columbus that the players know all too well. Moments in time, quieted by snare hits and shots off the bar. If you enjoy it, you likely know the silence it elicits. He can do a roughhewn punk facade on Straw Thief, but the layers and craft surrounding it are pure class, noble grit, magic realism.