Reviewed by Eric Saeger
Attention to hayseed detail helped place this one-off in the Top 10 of the Americana Music Association charts, where Decembrists and Gregg Allman are also holding court at this writing. The EP’s title was an unfortunate choice, as some people might run screaming from anything threatening to be NASCAR-ified ‘Let the Eagle Soar’ chest-thumping celebrating our rapidly failing state; but I suppose people expect everything nowadays to be a Tin Pan Alley play on words and will correctly expect John Prine-style tearjerking and old school honky-tonk. Twenty-somethings still love them their hipsterisms, so the LP begins with ‘Your Lonely Heart’, written by (Romantica frontman) Kyle most likely while coming down from a Cowboy Junkies bender. From there, though, it’s throwback city – solemn renderings of ‘Love Hurts’, Luke McDaniel’s ‘You’re Still On My Mind’ and Prine’s ‘Unwed Fathers’ broken up at one point by the Dwight Yoakam-ish honky-tonk original ‘Fire Alarm’.
Grade: A
