Description
It takes real skill to portray impending disaster in song so that it sounds as welcome as a morning breeze. But whenever an artist pulls it off, we’re reminded of why we turn to music in the first place.
Lines in the Levee, the sixth studio album from Asheville, North Carolina sextet Town Mountain, is clearly the work of a band that’s grown adept at tackling uncomfortable subjects while simultaneously lightening the load for the audience.
Throughout the album, the band’s three lead vocalist/songwriters—Greer, mandolinist Phil Barker and banjoist Jesse Langlais—explore themes like ambivalence towards a hometown that’s sunken into alcoholism and despair (‘Comeback Kid), the inability to ensure that children have a system they can trust (‘Distant Line’), the climate crisis (‘Seasons Don’t Change’) and yearning to break free of a dead-end life path (‘Big Decisions’).
Remarkably, though, Town Mountain’s execution can be so smooth one gets the sense that the band couldn’t be heavy-handed if it tried. And on other songs (‘American Family,’ ‘Leanin into the Blue’), the bigger-picture concerns take a backseat to relatable everyday drama, which only adds more weight and depth to the material.
