The Lonesome Season
Bonfire, 2021
8/10
The multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Andrew Crawford knows his way around a bluegrass tune you won’t soon forget, and here he’s got 10 originals for us that take help from Aaron Ramsey, Tim Crouch, and Jason Moore, among others.
The title track starts the listen with warm strings flowing alongside Crawford’s heartfelt and poetic singing that benefits from harmonies and much beauty, and “How Many Miles Of Track” follows with a very mountain-esque delivery of precise strings and expressive vocals.
Halfway through, “The House That Daddy Built” is a calmer moment of sublime songwriting that meshes Crawford’s agile pipes with meticulous string manipulation, while “Land Of The Giants” gives the vocal chords a break and instead focuses on the fascinating chord progression of the instruments in a dreamy climate.
Landing near the end, “Pace’s Bluff” possesses much eloquence amid Crawford’s easily relatable storytelling, and “Fear Of The Mountain” exits on another instrumental, where the acoustic guitar acrobatics are nothing short of spellbinding and the frisky banjo plucking won’t disappoint, either.
Although he’s still a relatively new name in the bluegrass scene, with records this well done, Crawford absolutely holds his own on the Bonfire roster, and is an artist certainly worth keeping an eye on for the bluegrass inclined.
Travels well with: The Bonfire Movement- Pressing Onward; Ray Cardwell- Just A Little Rain