Cedric Burnside Wraps Tight Skeletal Arrangements On Honest To Death ‘Hill Country Love’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

A natural companion piece and logical extension of namesake Duwayne’s 2023 Acoustic, Cedric Burnside’s Hill Country Love hews close to a stripped-down and intimate sound. Featuring only four musicians in skeletal arrangements, this co-production with North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther Dickinson is a credible acknowledgment of the entire Burnside family’s musical roots in a region of the deep south teeming with authentic creativity. 

On the title song, where Artemas LeSueur plays drums along with the aforementioned co-producer on bass, there’s ample evidence of the delicious simplicity in place on this LP. Patrick Williams plays harmonica along with the rhythm section and the principal on “Smile” and, as his instrument meshes with those around him, the empathetic passion that courses throughout this music becomes especially prominent.

Perhaps that’s because of the overriding spontaneity of ‘studio’ sessions that took only two days. Given that engineer Kevin Houston recorded the fourteen tracks in what’s described as ‘in an old building in Ripley, MS,’, the performances arrive in remarkably pristine audio. Accordingly, the high fidelity just as fully pervades what are essentially solo tracks like “Shake Em On Down” as the electrified ensemble likes of  “I Know.” 

The clarity of sound maybe just a physical manifestation of Burnside’s state of mind as a musician. There’s a devotional undercurrent pervading the music that may account for the deep feeling(s) permeating songs here like “Comin’ To Ya” and the bulk of Hill Country Love; that atmosphere takes the form of something akin to a trance on “Thank You,” but it’s no less apparent on two covers here either. 

As Cedric Burnside performs Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Got to Move,” recorded by the Rolling Stones on Sticky Fingers, and “Po Black Maddie,” a longstanding entry in NMA’s repertoire, those durable pieces become more than mere exercises in style or de rigueur homage to roots. In fact, unlike those aforementioned covers, this latter number–composed by Cedric’s grandfather R.L Burnside–sounds as true to life as its counterpart. 

With an impromptu air that belies how deeply the musicianship reverberates within, the cut ultimately turns as stirring as it is infectious, a description that might well apply to Hill Country Love as a whole.

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