Greg Vanderpool - Sub Raton (2020)

Texas-based singer/songwriter Greg Vanderpool has worked the last 20+ years, steadily releasing albums (eponymously and with Milton Mapes, Monahans) that explore the subtle nuance within stark/hazy drones, Sunday hymns, and intensely rhythmic pop anthems.

His latest, Sub Raton (2020), goes all in with quiet, warm, country heartbreak. It's a tribute to choice albums by Townes Van Zandt, Neil Young (think Harvest Moon), and Cowboy Junkies. As with much of his catalog, these songs find their spiritual roots in the familiar arms of the American Southwest. But this time, the occasional crack of thunder gives way to a gentler roll, like a dry whisper, from beginning to end. Sub Raton was created with the help of producers Britton Beisenherz and Roberto Sanchez, Jim Fredley, Phil McJunkins, and Jon-Michael Rogers.

This album is the first release since 2017's Pilot, where uncertainty and mortality met head-on in raw, reverb-drenched, 21st-century blues, searching the horizon for hope in turbulent times ahead. The urgency is best expressed in the refrain of “To Violet” which candidly asks “Has the whole world lost its mind?”.

Vanderpool's journey also includes shows and tours with musical heroes Willie Nelson, Magnolia Electric Co., The Jayhawks, Cowboy Junkies, and Alejandro Escovedo (to namedrop a few); recording collaborations with Sinead O’Connor and Adrian Quesada (Black Pumas), respectively; and even a song covered by Robert Plant in 2010. Austin NPR affiliate KUTX described the music as possessing “the skeletal darkness of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and Brian Eno’s ambient beauty”.