INDEPENDENT

This album promised “countryfied indie folk with tons of heart, soul and swagger” and it delivered!  Brenda Lee Kelly fronts a band featuring fiddle, twangy guitars, lapsteel and dobro, drums and a somewhat edgy outlook on music and life. I immediately gravitated to Wildhorse Mountain with its bluegrass tinges and western story and the slightly quirky Closing Time At The Cemetery Gates – inspired by a visit to the French burial place of Jim Morrison.

Brenda wrote the songs during treatment for cancer and recorded these songs that tell stories of love, healing and the twists that sometimes cross one’s path – check out Punk’s Not Dead (It’s Gone Country) or Hand Me Down Kisses or Barnard’s Star. She has a unique vocal tone and style, and it stands out amongst today’s saccharine female country output and rings of genuine country leanings. Maybe file under Alt Country, but that just means this is more country than most of the songs on the radio charts at the moment.

WFB01

JON WOLFE

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