Miles on the Rail

A near perfect melding of country and rock (but not country rock, dammit) and will get moneymakers shakin' from Bakersfield to Boston. Honky tonk stylings and indie-rock chutzpah...

Full Description

A near perfect melding of country and rock (but not country rock, dammit) and will get moneymakers shakin' from Bakersfield to Boston.

We love the classic honky-tonk templates in the vein of Buck Owens and Lefty Frizzell butting against the chutzpah of indie-rock luminaries like Jason & the Scorchers and the Long Ryders. Toss in a guitar player who threads a line between Johnny Cash's Luther Perkins and the Replacements' Bob Stinson, and a pedal steel player (Jon Rauhouse) renowned far and wide for his swashbuckling style, and, brother, you're in high heaven.

Like their early contempories the Old 97s, the Grievous Angels took a train beat, messed it up, added the energy of a punk show and the heart of well-traveled, broken-hearted story teller to come up with a fresh sound(well, as fresh as anything can be coming out of the scalp-searing Arizona desert.)

The soaring guitars and harmonies, with that pedal steel weaving in and out, give songs like "Seven Engines" and "Ten Feet Away" a scope reflecting the wide open spaces of the West. "Sin Away" and " and "Might Be You" wouldn't have been out of place in a honky-tonk, as long as they didn't mind the amps being turned up a notch or two.

There's also a little Tom Waits number ("Cold, Cold Ground") cuz these dudes all had cool record collections.

CHOICE CUTS:
Seven Engines
Might Be You
Cold Cold Ground
Sin Away

Short Description

Whitehead's insistent vocals and a band gift for arrangement and execution gives the Grievous Angels the rare blend of contemporary and traditional.

— Cincinnati City Beat
The sounds careening off this recording represent a fulfilling barroom blast of rock and country.

— Naragansett Times
[The lyrics] mask a fatalistic world view behind a sunny disposition with the same skill that John Fogerty employed on "Bad Moon Rising." And like the Louvin Brothers, the Grievous Angels sound happiest ruminating over the wages of sin, a cockeyed optimism only betrayed by the occasional tremor in Russ' voice.

— Phoenix New Times
Tempe, Arizona’s Grievous Angels stomp through a tour-de-force of Bakersfield honky-tonk that would make Buck Owens and Merle Haggard proud.

— PopMatters
If the Meat Puppets and the Flatlanders had a bastard love child their offspring would be the Grievous Angels.

— Ft Worth Weekly