Angel Band : With Roots & Wings

Country Music Reviews

Angel Band : With Roots & Wings

Amazing vocals, amazing writing, amazing harmonies: Yup: "With Roots & Wings" - the debut album from Angel Band is downright amazing.

Many will find much of the album a little hard to take because this is NOT mainstream "Country radio" Nashpop music.

These girls and their musicians could roll into any tiny town in the USA, stand on any makeshift stage and produce exactly the sound that you hear on the CD.

They wouldn't need forty ton trucks, huge tour buses, massive mixing consoles, huge computers to ensure they stay in tune.

What that shows, beyond anything else, is what a talented trio they are and how Country music CAN be a simple and beautiful thing!.

Most of the writing credits go to Nancy Josephson.  Her song styles vary widely from the hugely accessible to the obscure and tortured.

"I'll Sing This Song For You" sets the album alight after an amazing a'cappella introductory track. It's a kind of hillbilly style love song, in which Nancy promises to do a great deal to get her man. But you just know she's serious when she sings: "I'll sell all my shoes for you." Utter brilliance.

It's followed by the torture of a breaking relationship in "Place Of Grace". This is a gentle, slow number where Josephson's vocals take on a reedy thinness. I don't know how to say this without being accused of sexism. She shows female vulnerability in the way she sings, yet strength of emotion in the words she sings. Again, brilliant.

"Cold Lonesome Down In Blackbird Creek" sounds as though it's a trad country song: it's not, it's another Josephson special. The harmonies here are amazing and Kathleen Weber and Jen Schonwald get to share the lead vocals.

The theme on "Moon Over Montgomery" is a Country music perennial - a single mom struggling to raise her kids right on the wrong side of town. The music here is written by Bobby Tangrea - who contributes a share of the writing on the album - and Josephson provides the lyrics.  

What makes the song different is that this is plain Country; the music is plain simple; the lyrics DON'T rely on cliches and TV imagery. AGAIN, brilliant.

The group even risk a cover song - Chip Taylor's "Angel Of The Morning". Wow! Taylor will be pleased. This is the song as it should be, without fripperies. AGAIN .... Brilliant.

But my favorite track is "We Are Shepherds". It is - in my eyes - the finest anti-war protest song I've heard since those anti-Vietnam songs of the Sixties.

Any politician who plans a war has to face the mothers of the sons and daughters who actually head for the front line. SURELY that should give them pause for thought!

Josephson's lyrics tell it like it is from a mother's viewpoint:
               "We won't give you our children", she warns,
and  adds:
               "No shedding of blood, just the power of love;
               "Peace and mercy all around".

It is, above all, a message of Angels. And it's appropriate that it should be delivered by three ladies with angelic voices who chose the collective name Angel Band.

I should add that the album would not be so good were it not for the work of a bunch of hugely talented musicians who back the singers. Their contribution cannot be understated and is shown at it's best on the final track "Jump Back In The Ditch".

My View: Do yourself a favor and listen to this one! It's how Country music should be!

What do YOU think?? Tell us here!