 The Lonesome Heroes
Austin Chronicle, October 31st, 2008.
By Doug Freeman
Fronted by local free spirits Rich Russell and Landry McMeans, the Lonesome Heroes' psych-country sound proves equally restless. Whereas 2006 EP Don't Play to Lose wandered with a gentle ease, the group's debut full-length moves in more focused, if experimentally flourished, directions. "Lonestar" opens with a lilting warp and rough guitar distortion, Russell's playful drawl shading Lyle Lovett. McMeans' soft trill on "Canary" and "Stardust" lifts the album into airier climes that balance Russell's earthier tones, like Alison Krauss with a Texas twang, the best songs marrying the two vocal impulses in duet. Like the titular thoroughfare, the LP's merit lies in its peripheral surprises, Seth Gibbs' subtle, effects-laden production winding McMeans' Dobro through the pull of Sarah Stollak's fiddle on "Detained Dream" and spotlighting Kullen Fuchs' French horn on "Turn On the Shine."  Leopold & His Fiction
Leopold and his Fiction is the balanced reincarnate of a sultry era of Western darkness underneath big city lights and country back roads leading to the morning shore of a transpiring musical horizon. The honest and transcendent San Francisco Rock ‘n' Roll band escalating into the west coast music scene, Leopold and his Fiction acquires a moody-pop frame derived from distant genres and unwavering imagination in an attempt to reinvent what each member feels has dissipated from the greater measure of music.
Leopold provides Detroit filth and guitar orientation breathing parallel with rasped vocals soaring to a grave reflection. Of the trio's American bicoastal familiarity and British influence, Daniel, along with the recent addition of bassist Micayla Grace, and drummer/organist Jon Sortland contribute to a very diverse sound through personal interests.
Together Leopold and his Fiction offers a morbid cohesion of California and a gentle open plains reminiscence stimulating a reason and energy for people to listen closely. A new vision in music and thought offers an alternate take to the repetition of a-sides with their own traditional sounds and elaborations.  ....And Hod
Hod is but a man, one man recording himself, railing against the ding dong of doom. But Hod understands you, understands your connection to the real, about the way you engage with geography (based in the past, close to the future), about how you get your trees to grow... and the world of the bugs and the sea animals that you study closely, putting a lens to what dosen´t seem visible, and making it real but also surprising, sometimes sensational, like all the escaping animals... and we will say "Can that really be?" We will have to understand that the animals have a life of their own outside our perception. Of course that again makes space for further speculation. Now is his closeness to the present, his songs conceived in the choo choo of thought; passing quickly, leaving the track, but also leaving a track. "I try not encase my songs in any time frame or space, but innately fail because I wear a big yellow watch.... That ticks.... Loudly." Hod |
