Oakley Hall: I’ll Follow You

Last year, Oakley Hall released two full-lengths within mere months of each other, and apparently both were necessary; Second Guessing and Gypsum Strings both found their way onto critics’ top ten lists and, even better, featured splendid male/female harmonies and transcendent electric country anthems that were both immediately gratifying and intricate.

Oakley Hall’s six members contribute fiddle, lap steel, organ, guitar, rhythm, and four-part harmonies, which, on fourth LP I’ll Follow You, they weave into cyclic-riffed Southern rock jams that bob the heads of entranced listeners (“Marine Life”), use to tear coaxing C&W ballads (“First Frost”), and lead to a fiddle-led lament about a relationship that “starts like a supernova, ends up like a drizzling rain” (“Free Radicals Lament”).

Though the band is clearly the kind to wear scuffed, not polished, cowboy boots, its style of country is an unexpected hybrid that’s never musically hackneyed or lyrically clichéd; chronicles of journeys, no-schmaltz love, and the sting of endings accompany catchy guitar hooks that unfurl mid-song on bridges to louder decibels, only to loop back ‘round into rousing conversation with the other six-strings.

In high-volt jams like “No Dreams,” lead singers Patrick Sullivan and Rachel Cox flex their burly vocals while guitars rock like the thunderstorms about which they sing. “Rue the Blues” ushers in the slurs ‘n’ twang, the line “you’ll never rue the blues like I do,” and enough pop sensibility to keep things short enough to be sweet. Although less pretty than Second Guessing, I’ll Follow You succeeds by virtue of raw talent, variety, and foolhardy sincerity.

– Kristen Grayewski

Oakley Hall: www.oakleyhall.net
Merge Records: www.mergerecords.com