The July edition of Best Country Music on Bandcamp features a lot of old-time music and string band sounds, some genuine honky-tonk, a few different approaches to folk, and more. Enjoy!
Ben Arsenault
Make Way For This Heartache
Vinyl LP
The new record from Ben Arsenault has a classic country title and classic country cover art. So it’s no surprise the Vancouver, B.C. singer-songwriter delivers 10 classic country tunes that blend timeless twangy elements—the pedal steel sounds great—with streaks of Acadian fiddle music. Combined with Arsenault’s soulful voice (which recalls the great Robbie Fulks), the results are sublime.
Blaine Todd
Goodbye ‘Til I Do Good By You
Cassette
The non-country moments on Blaine Todd’s fourth solo album are decidedly not country—“Dream Wine,” for example, is five and a half minutes of dusky drone music. But the country moments here feel deeply rooted in the weird traditions of the American West, where Texas twang meets Bay Area psychedelia, woozy hallucinations dot the Southwest’s vast deserts and bluesy roots rock ripples out beneath endless starry skies. It’s a trip worth taking!
Melissa Carper
Borned In Ya
Compact Disc (CD), Vinyl LP
If Best Country Music on Bandcamp had an all-star team, Melissa Carper would be in the starting lineup. After two previous appearances in this column, the itinerant singer-songwriter is back with a new album that’s named after a Ralph Stanley quote and packed to the brim with her distinctive blend of bluegrass, honky-tonk, vintage soul, and Western swing. Carper has a gift for making old-fashioned sounds feel fresh and vibrant; on Borned In Ya, she does it again.
Joseph Decosimo, Luke Richardson & Cleek Schrey
Beehive Cathedral
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
Field recordings. Ancient Appalachian fiddle tunes. A whistling neighbor. A found shape note hymnal. These are just some of the sources and inspirations behind the 15 songs on Beehive Cathedral, the first album from Joseph Decosimo, Luke Richardson, and Cleek Schrey—three musicians deeply interested and immersed in the traditional music of the American South. Armed with fiddles, banjos, and an antique pump organ, the trio gathered in a Tennessee cabin, dug deep into whatever sounds crossed their path and captured one of the best old-time albums of the year.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit
City Of Glass
Compact Disc (CD), Vinyl LP
In a world where Billy Strings is a hero to the jam-band community and Molly Tuttle can headline rock clubs, the sky’s the limit for AJ Lee & Blue Summit. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the quartet plays a brand of bluegrass that goes down easy, thanks not just to its rock, folk, country, and soul influences but also to Lee’s melodic sensibility and show-stopping singing voice. They may never play arenas like Strings, but they’ll be headlining open-minded bluegrass festivals soon enough.
Silverada
Silverada
Silverada is the ninth album from the band formerly known as Mike And The Moonpies, and now known as…yes, Silverada. The Texas band changed its name in January, but what hasn’t changed is its wide-ranging and ever-evolving approach to making country music. That approach powered the Moonpies’s sharp rise within the current Americana scene, and it shines through in these new songs, which are endlessly catchy, authentically twangy, and ready for the bigger venues in Silverada’s future.
Jake Xerxes Fussell
When I’m Called
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
Jake Xerxes Fussell’s 2022 album Good And Green Again was the first to feature some of the North Carolina folk artist’s original compositions. On When I’m Called, he gets back to doing what he does best: sourcing traditional folk songs and field recordings, interpreting them using his own lens, creating new arrangements for them, and recording the beautiful results. With his warm baritone and gentle guitar fingerpicking at the center of these efforts, Fussell breathes new life into forgotten material that still has something to say.
Rainy Eyes
Lonesome Highway
7" Vinyl, Compact Disc (CD)
Rainy Eyes is Irena Eide, a singer and songwriter who is based in Louisiana and a native of Norway. Somewhere along the way, she started writing songs to help herself heal from the trauma of a toxic relationship. Those songs make up the backbone of Lonesome Highway, an 11-track collection of country-folk songs that ooze laid-back California cool even as they document the ups and downs of Eide’s journey through self-discovery, catharsis, and restoration.
Maya de Vitry
The Only Moment
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
Maya de Vitry spent nine years as a member of The Stray Birds, a band known for its acoustic interplay and gorgeous harmonies. Now, she’s steering her own ship, not only as a solo artist but also as the producer of her excellent new album The Only Moment, which finds de Vitry pushing and pulling on the conventions of indie folk. These 10 songs are dimly lit and densely constructed, yet they feel approachable and light as a feather—a testament to de Vitry’s vision for an album heavy on atmosphere and unburdened by genre. Check out “Nothing Else Matters,” a tune that feels like it has existed forever, even if it’s new to you.
David Payne
Last Call At The Yellow Horse Saloon
Compact Disc (CD)
The name on the album cover is David Payne, but let’s take a moment to shout out the late Wayne Hobbs, who passed away in June, but not before he played the pedal steel guitar that enriches Last Call At The Yellow Horse Saloon. His work is delectable, and it lives within Payne’s honky-tonkin’ world, which is so vividly detailed that you might just smell the cigarette smoke and hear the pool balls knocking together in the background. This is a concept album about dive bars and their patrons, and Payne, from Dayton, Ohio, sounds perfectly qualified to bring them to life.
