Friends In High Places
Capitane, 2021
8/10
Listen to Friends In High Places
The prolific artist Turner Cody is now 15 albums deep into his diverse career, and Friends In High Places continues his inimitable vision with a skilled balance of country and folk ideas alongside groove friendly and French indie-rock influenced song craft.
“Boozing and Losing” starts the listen with Cody’s warm, eloquent singing alongside light drumming and gentle guitar as timeless country qualities are present, and “The Four Thousand Dollar Days” follows with a soulful approach that brings us back to the ‘70s with its gritty, waltz presence.
Landing near the middle, “Mr. Wrong” points towards darker textures as much atmosphere enters mysterious storytelling, while “Telling Stories” moves swiftly with an upbeat display of rural influenced indie-rock where the intricate guitar lines are just so inviting. “What I Tell You”, a particularly great tune, then shuffles with a charming melody that’s indebted to earlier decades and delivered with a frisky appeal.
Closer to the end, “Nothing But Regrets” offers a cautious, reflective tone amid some of the best guitar playing on the record, and “Drink A Toast In Heaven” exits the listen soft and somewhere between Cowboy balladry and gospel sensibilities, as Cody channels a timelessness parallel to Dylan, Cohen or Van Zandt.
Part beat poetry, part retro-folk sounds and certainly indebted to classic country, you might think of Cody’s work as ‘continental country’, and with his stellar band The Soldiers Of Love, he’s making some of his best art to date, and that’s no easy task considering the strength of his back catalog.
Travels well with: K.C. Jones- Queen Of The In Between; Sam Robbins- Finally Feeling Young