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Flatlanders - Hills And Valleys
| Austinchronicle |
| Technically speaking, the Flatlanders' millennial reboot, 2002's bonhomous Now Again, constitutes Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock's sophomore slump. After all, the three musketeers' original sessions from 1971 and 1972, bronzed for posterity decades later by Rounder Records' More a Legend Than a Band, produced West Texas mysticism more a secret handshake than a music legend, yet still a Lone Star singer-songwriter standard. In primary vocalist Gilmore's tremulous croon – sharing the spotlight with the musical saw and buttressed by the compositional wit and wisdom of Hancock and Ely's firestarter command – blew the state's "South Wind of Summer," put into song for Now Again. Its 2004 follow-up, Wheels of Fortune, proved too much too soon, the album's spokes falling off after two years of touring that followed 30 years of occasional Flatlanders reunions. Hills and Valleys is the disc the whole shootin' match has been building toward. The culmination of the three amigos' lifelong collaboration – vocally, musically, ideologically, sequentially – Hills and Valleys, not unlike Bruce Springsteen's Working on a Dream in relation to the three E Street Band LPs since 2002, crowns the group's decade. Manned by fellow Lubbock émigré and steel-string sage Lloyd Maines, as opposed to Ely, who produced the last two albums, Hills and Valleys rides a line the Southern Pacific Railroad would envy. Writing together where previously each songsmith mostly submitted his own material, Gilmore/Ely/Hancock's first six salvos here are their best run yet, opener "Homeland Refugee" a modern Woody Guthrie standard, rollicking follower "Borderless Love" basically another, and "After the Storm" in the third spot reiterating why Gilmore was the act's original singer. No. 6 slot, "Just About Time," perfects the Flatlanders' campfire bump and grind. From there, Mr. This Guitar Kills Fascists (Guthrie) lends the threesome his hillbilly jaunt, "Sowing on the Mountain," while Gilmore's son Colin lands the album's shooting star, "The Way We Are." Master craftsmen Rob Gjersoe (guitar), Glenn Fukunaga (bass), Rafael Gayol (drums), and Joel Guzman (accordion), not to mention original Flatlander Steve Wesson, whose saw on "Cry for Freedom" lends the Gilmore/Ely/Hancock lament an almost West African quality, hum at cricket frequencies. Closer "There's Never Been" catalogs nature's larger truths. Count the Flatlanders on that roll call....full text |
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| Pastemagazine |
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The Flatlanders are now more a band than a legend, to inversely paraphrase the title of their first CD. By the time More a Legend Than a Band came out in 1990, it was primarily a historic document, drawn from the 1972 sessions of one of Texas’ earliest and short-lived alternative-country bands. But as the band members-Joe Ely, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore-began to have successful solo careers as singer-songwriters, interest grew in their long-forgotten Flatlanders roots. The primarily acoustic Hills and Valleys, produced by Lloyd Maines, is the Flatlanders' third and strongest album since reuniting in 1998 for The Horse Whisperer soundtrack. The three share writing credits on eight songs, and create vividly rendered tales about restless hearts, wide-open spaces and troubled times. They also have carefully crafted melodies, especially the mid-tempo compositions replete with folk-rock hooks. “Homeland Refugee,” sung by Ely, updates Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie with hauntingly vivid detail; “Borderless Love” is both romantic and political. Hancock’s “Thank God for the Road” showcases his characteristic inventive wordplay, always careful to be sincere and not merely clever. Although there are a couple filler songs sprinkled throughout, the Flatlanders are clearly no longer a mere legend. They're elders of Americana music. Role models, even....full text |
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| Billboard |
| Individually, and especially as the Flatlanders, Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock made albums that can leave you pining for Texas and wanting to run away there in pursuit of a better life. In their humility and sweetness, the songs on "Hills and Valleys" are no different, tapping into the myth of Texas and the American West. "I don't need no worldwide web to show me how it's done," Gilmore charmingly sings on his accordion-laced love letter "No Way I'll Never Need You." As usual, the three distinctive voices get equal time on lead vocals, and Hancock's "Thank God for the Road" is probably the album's best track. But of course, the threesome is best when trading verses and flaunting its ample talent on strummy singalongs like "Just About Time."—Wes Orshoski...full text |
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