As some of you may be aware, I have been on the Volume Five Train for now officially 10 years. The liner note for their new project Milestones talk about the bands experiences ten years later and what has changed and what has stayed the same. In some ways, this band has stayed the same. The Blue Highway aesthetic is still evident and the mix of blues and ballad material isn’t matched in today’s bluegrass climate. On the other hand, this band has grown by leaps and bounds since their first album Down in the Cell which has strong material, but doesn’t have the consistency, or professionalism that their last few albums possess. This group’s stock has also taken a huge rise since the inappropriate, yet desirable recognition by IBMA for Emerging Bluegrass Group of the Year. Regardless, their new found admiration and respect by Bluegrass’s standard bearers has given the band a foot in the door for getting song writers such as Becky Buller, Ronnie Bowman, Tim Stafford, Shawn Lane and countless others.
And while this group has instrumentalists that range from serviceable to strong, and Glen Harrell is possibly the most underrated vocalist in bluegrass today, this band goes as far as the songwriting takes it and on Milestones it takes them farther than ever before.
Like numerous albums of all genres before it, this album takes on the concept of romantic relationships, but from numerous aspects that are not ignored individually, but generally is not covered this cohesively. First of all, there are two killing songs, which is a good start for any album. The opening track “Just Beyond the Window” opens with the momentous rolls of Patton Wages, who if you haven’t seen him, looks like the personification of a banjo, it’s awesome. The track, written by IIIrd Tyme Out Bassist Jerry Cole tells the similar story of the revenge murder for cheating woman and the death of the unsuspecting other man. Wages drive really makes this track, but the high tenor Chris Williamson ain’t bad itself, and it is such a great contrast to the third track of the album “Hayley”. Written by Market and Josh Miller, the track tells the story of a father who feels an ode to protect his daughter from her abusive relationship which results in the murder of the abuser and the father singing this song to his daughter from behind a jail cell. This track should really give Harrell consideration for vocalist of the year. When he sings “As long as I have air to breathe I’ll be looking out for you” one is transported into the father’s perspective in a way that’s similar to “Room over Mine” by Danny Paisley or “Bed By the Window” by the late James King. This song is also extremely important, it brings an interesting mix of toxic masculinity, compassion, fatherhood, and the agency of the abused. These issues are usually left to other genres, but I’m ecstatic that Harrell and Volume Five had the courage to perform it and Josh and Market to write it.
“Now That’s a song” is the track getting radio time, which figures since it is one of the safest and unnecessary on the album. When you have a voice like Harrell’s and you received these songs like “North Dakota” from Becky Buller and Ronnie Bowman’s “Looks Like Losing You” this seemed like the time to release a ballad single and rest on the band’s vocal chops and the lyrical strength to get air plays. But Nonetheless, this album does have fun upbeat moments. I can’t help but think that the addition of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s hit “Looking Out my Back Door” is an ode to cinema’s greatest masterpiece The Big Lebowski on its twentieth anniversary. “I’ll Turn my Back” is a barn burner where instrumentalists such as the eighteen year-old son of Jason Burleson, Jacob, goes off and shows a strong right hand. Jacob’s playing on the whole album is impeccable and I look forward to the ways he improves in the future.
With that being said, this is Harrell’s band. The connections he can find with different song writers definitely comes to be on this album much more than the previous Drifter where the songs simply weren’t as well written and the subject matter not as possible. On Milestone, we may just be seeing the beginning of a band on the rise due to stronger material and deeper commitment to their sound.
