‘Mountains/Forests' is the first album length collaboration between JT NERO (of JT and the Clouds) and Alison Russell (from Po’ Girl). It is a hefty slice of Americana, and has some really great tracks on it. All of the ten tracks on the CD fall firmly within the American country/folk genre.
JT Nero has a marvellous gravelly voice, which suits the songs perfectly, and lists Mark twain and Sam Cooke as his main song writing influences. The Twain influence can be clearly heard as JT lists scenarios that are typically American and at the heart of the West. He also has an excellent turn of phrase, some songs coming across as a stream of consciousness.
Alison Russell handles her vocal parts brilliantly. Her bluesy, soulful voice complementing Nero’s and leading to a real listening pleasure.
The opening title track of the album is a banjo and piano led country rock song, with JT sounding world weary, as he sings: -
“I wanna lay down in the weeds and the tendrils/ And I’ve been warned by Surgeon Generals.” On the chorus there are some splendid harmonies, and it conjures a nice, slightly weird imagery: - “There are mountains, there are forests, there are tiny electric sea horses.”
The second track, ‘Mi Salvador What’s Happenin’’ is a country song with the acoustic guitar as the main instrument. Here, the lyrics are slightly Dylanesque, and are some musings on life and death: - “Everyone came down to see, Mrs Abernathy’s bees. They were all dead on the ground/ The workers, the drones, even the queen. My best friend’s sister’s daughter,She could not stop crying.” On this track Alison Russell’s vocal give this a soulful depth.
Other tracks that really hit the spot for me were ‘Lowlanders’, with its bass heavy melody carrying the acoustic guitar. This comes across as a jazzy rap, which details the haves and the have nots. The lyrics are quite direct rather than oblique, and straight to the point: - “The moment came and went right past ya, the truth tastes like battery acid.”
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Then there's ‘Roll Tide': a lovely country ballad based around banjo and guitar. This is the sort of song the REM would wish they’d written for ‘Automatic For The People.'‘North star’, meanwhile, has an almost ‘We Will Rock You’ drum beat and comes across very much as a Southern rock song. The lyrics are quite evocative: - “There is no North Star, say, what they are. There are birds on the wire,And there is crying in the rain. I’ve seen prairie grass, I’ve seen crows, Sitting like stones.”
‘Grey Ghost’ reminded me slightly of ‘Instant Karma’ with its heavy piano melody, and boasts my favourite line on the entire album: - “No-one wants to see you crawl back to a memory.”
‘Oh! Sunny Day’ is another really good track, the penultimate on the album, with a steel guitar, banjo and in places even glockenspiel, this is a song of hope and of looking forwards not back.
'Mountains/ Forests' is well worth a listen, and is available as a CD from outlets like Amazon.Com and also as a download. If you are a fan of this genre, then this would be an investment that you would not regret.
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