Music: Case Hardin & The Dreaming Spire

Homegrown Americana music keeps on keeping on…

Oxford based The Dreaming Spires’ debut long player Brothers In Brooklyn was released on Clubhouse in 2012, to some resoundingly positive reviews, with Q magazine calling it the most thrilling country rock debut since Big Star. Comparisons with the aforementioned Big Star as well as Tom Petty, The Byrds and even The Replacements abound, and there is a retro rawness to the sound, but this is no slavish copycat band – much like the much-loved Teenage Fanclub, they doff their cap here and there, but the reality is that they love their melodies, and place them in the here and now as so many wonderful alt-country, Americana and folk-based acts are doing nowadays. Ultimately, it is feel-good music, played with tremendous spirit.

Case Hardin is also on the superlative Clubhouse label, and fronted by the masterful storytelling of Pete Gow, this revolving band has produced another excellent album in the form of PM, a work that it is more downbeat than its two predecessors, but which translates the power of their live shows onto record more expertly. More keyboard-led than previous Case Hardin albums, a melancholy mood pervades throughout, reminiscent of the more ballady side of Neil Young, with splashes of The Waterboys, Jackson Browne Tom Waits and Willy Vlautin here and there.

Gow’s sparse yet passionate songs are largely filled with dignified losers, and those down on their luck, but often where hope outshines despair. Once you realise that Gow’s other life is that of a war correspondent for CBS News, any cynical potshots that may be fired towards him regarding authenticity, can easily be brushed aside – he’s witnessed first-hand plenty of strife and broken dreams.

Gow says that producing news pieces and performing music makes him a better storyteller and better at both. “They are both short form, both concise,” he says. The two-minute news post is like a song, you put your best foot forward, and hit them hard. Best lines at the top, and striking imagery.The parallels are very similar.”

He spent seven years in Baghdad, and it was while he was there that he would spend downtime writing songs. He was also in Tripoli when rebel soldiers stormed Gaddafi’s compound. Although these experiences do inform his work here and there, the songs are mainly informed about more close-to-home matters: “We’re much happier about playing songs about woman who have done terrible things to me, about drinking too much, about having too much fun and getting into trouble,” albeit with a smile.
Palmeira, Friday 28 March, 8pm, £8

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