At Dawn

Many consider their second record At Dawn (2001) their best record. Singer/Songwriter Jim James' soulful voice and lonely country-rock songs are more intoxicating than ever here. Jim has a voice that's both honey and charcoal, like Neil Young at his most vulnerable. The songs are great deep south gothic canvases filled in with gracious acoustic and electric guitars, painterly strokes of harpsichord, harmonica and lap steel, drums swimming in the deepest, darkest, widest pools of reverb, dirigible harmonies that will have you weeping, with incensed atmosphere so thick, it's absolutely biblical. At times melancholy to the point of desperation, there's still a fiery joy to the proceedings, the same sense of euphoria meets-tragedy that Neil Young and Johnny Cash can muster, with a serious sense of traditional folk, the collective conscious of American Blues, Country, and Rock 'n' Roll. The Country influence isn't artifice, no indeedy, it's coming straight from Jim James' soul. Check out the Allman Brothers' styled exorcism that goes by the name "Honest Man" if you need some heavy with your duty. James is indeed a young man with a great gift. Jim James mixed At Dawn with David Trumfio at Kingsize Sound Labs. Listen and get hooked.