NANCARROW: Hot Chicken

Fans of alternative country music that rocks, while having a built in respect for the old time honkey tonk sound and its patron saints, will be glad to hear that Nancarrow has a new album out. The North County group is following up 2015’s Simple Things with another full-length CD, Hot Chicken. Their last effort pulled in the San Diego Music Award for Best Americana album, and the new disc follows the same template. Guess what? It is nominated for a 2018 SDMA nod as well.

The band for this one is a four-piece, with songwriter Graham Nancarrow taking the lead vocal slot and adding guitar, backed by Russell Hayden’s lap steel, pedal steel, electric guitar and backing vocals. The rhythm section is Joe Weisiger’s bass and Ron Kerner on drums and percussion. They play a mix of material;-some of the 12 songs have their roots in the central valley, sawdust-on-the-floor country bars that were hangouts for oil roughnecks and other blue collar types who came to drink and hear artists as far back as Hank Williams and Merle Haggard. Other songs rock harder, but nothing here is like the glossy hat-act artists on the TV award shows.

Nancarrow sets the tone with “Fumes,” which kicks into high gear right away with lyrics about hitting the road and traveling to yet another dive bar. His vocals, here and throughout, add a fine twang of authenticity to the Nashville-produced sound. Familiar topics dominate the honky-tonk style country shuffle on “Technically Legally Blind’” as Nancarrow is singing about his pool playing and whiskey drinking: “We all hurt sometimes/We’ll be just fine.” Hayden’s pedal steel gives this one a dose of country energy.

“Big in Vegas” is a highlight, a radio-ready anthem that proclaims the dreams of a working musician who is busting his ass for the chance to make it in Sin City. It builds up a big crescendo with female backups chanting the choruses and adding to the dynamics. Nancarrow follows this up with another ballad about traditional country concerns, as “The Bottom” is about the ongoing struggle between the artist and his companion, the bottle, and how his lover is once again gone as a result. On a lighter note, “Skinny Dippin’” is about going fishing with a girlfriend and a bottle of wine, and ending up sans clothes in the water; helped by Hayden’s tasty, Hawai’ian-flavored lap steel work.

Nancarrow takes a trip down well-traveled Haggard avenue with “Fool,” a ballad that laments his wayward ways as he lists his regrets to an old-school waltz beat. After rocking the house with “That’s What Boys Do” (they drink and play music) comes “Cold Wind.” This late-program highlight stands out as a softer, folk-influenced tune with harmonized choruses as Nancarrow sings about holding his lover close in the winter cold and “howling like a wolf at the moon.” The set wraps with a surf-rock instrumental, “The Hot Chicken Consequence” a cool tip off to Nancarrow’s surf and punk rock origins.

Nancarrow’s Hot Chicken is a great listen.