Recent Stories with tag big house church

Bands mining traditional Americana sounds come a dime a dozen nowadays, but you can count the number of 'em that actually capture the unbridled joy of their influences on Mickey Mouse's left hand.

In a world of whinging neo-folkies and over-studied No Depression mewlers, Indian Valley Line sound like the real, wonderfully unaffected deal: Three guys who'd be just as happy bashing away at their unadorned country-bluegrass tunes on a front porch under a restless night sky as in front of an audience. Which makes being in an audience for one of their shows a party, pure and simple.

The band's surging acoustic sound alternates chugging Johnny Cash old-school rockers with the sweet sting of Ryan Lynch's weepy electric guitar, and lead singer Kevin "Bubba" Sur belts out the tunes in a warm and keening Woody Guthrie wail that can't help but put a smile on your face. The band's packing an armada of great material, too: "Cleveland" bounces down the road like a great lost Chet Atkins track, and I triple-dog-dare...

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