Low Red Land has released an excellent entry in to the alternative country genre with their latest record Weight Of Nations. Names like Neil Young, Son Volt and to a lesser degree Mark Mulcahy come to mind while listening to the albums 9 tracks. The groups lo-fi inspired twang is quite infections and should appeal to most fans of the genre.

The albums opens with the mildly slow Dreams That Heroes Dream. The slow opening gives way to a distorted guitar heavy chorus that illustrates the aforementioned Son Volt influence. Vocalist Neil Thompson has a pleasant voice that works incredibly well here. After a few down tempo tracks things kick up with the Hunter S. Thompson inspired The Duke. The driving baseline and harmonies make this one of the best tracks on the album. The record ends with the banjo and accordion laced title taWeight Of Nations. This song has quite a different feel from the rest of the album but it still fits in the track list nicely.

The band employs a production aesthetic that I found reminiscent of The Black Keys. That aspect may hamper enjoyment of the album to some but others, myself included, will find it quite endearing. The mix could have used some thickening up and some minor improvements to the drum sound but other that that what they did works well for their musical style. This album along with material they’ve recently released online shows great potential for Low Red Land and I look forward to any future material they release. You can buy the album directly from the group via their website.

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