Texas Music Forever (studio album) by Cactus Lee

From Mercury 04/02/2021 04:11

(Warm, relaxed, homespun country folk by way of Texas. This is a perfect album for a hot afternoon, sitting on your porch or fire escape, a beer in hand, while watching the sun set, the smallest of smiles on your lips.)

There's a comfortable slowness to these songs and melodies that evokes a warm Texas afternoon breeze. The guitar picking, the mandolin, the peddle steel, the dry drum sounds, and especially the bordering-on-sleepy vocal delivery all create a distinctly country vibe. The entire package makes for a perfect summer afternoon sound, the perfect album to listen to when relaxing on a hot August afternoon while watching the sun set on your town.

The songs are solid and each individual part is quite well done, although the first half of the album does drag a bit after a 3 or 4 of these sleepy tempo'd songs. Thankfully the second half switches it up a bit and the band kinda wakes up and gets a few real upbeat tracks out. Starting with track 6, "No Way To Pretend", the album livens up the sound with some electric country jams filled with sweet homespun wisdom and gorgeous pedal steel melodies. And on the second half even on a song that underwhelmed me most of the way - "Locked Up In Lockhart' - featured a dope as hoedown jam with all the instruments playing off each other nicely.

Overall, this is a really solid folk country album and this group has a distinctly assured sound and they do what they do so damn well its hard not to enjoy this album. Glad I finally got around to listening to it after kinda earmarking it for a couple months.