Album Spotlight: Shelly Fairchild - Buffalo

Apparently Shelly Fairchild had released a couple of albums in the past. And had some minor success. Of course this was between 2005 and 2011, a dark time when I had relegated myself to listening to pretty much classic rock only (not that classic rock is bad, just that I wasn't seeking out new stuff).

Therefore I had never heard of her before a few days ago. Fairchild's latest album Buffalo made my year end honorable mentions and might have been higher had I known about it earlier. It's that good.

There is a lot of early Miranda Lambert attitude on Buffalo with more years of introspection. There's also the bluesy, swampy, Southern rock sound that you know I like. And then you get the hymn-like vibe on a song about addiction with "Unholy Spirit".

Buffalo is eleven tracks, two of which are remakes from her 2005 debut, "Ready to Fall" and "Down Into Muddy Water" (which is repackaged as just "Muddy Water"). Both remakes are edgier and dirtier, and in my opinion, better.

The new tracks are all swampy, edgy, torchy and fabulous.

For me, the only misstep on the record is "Start Walkin'". It just feels out place on an album with such feeling. Antiseptic and formulaic.

Other than that, the album delivers.

Here is my favorite song from the album, "Mississippi Turnpike":

Album Spotlight: Dorothy: ROCKISDEAD

Dorothy's new album ROCKISDEAD is a sweaty, sultry siren wearing snakeskin cowboy boots emerging from a swamp covered in scraps of metal and pieces of rock, blues oozing from the pores and dripping from the fingertips.

Unpack that image.

Dorothy is a band. But Dorothy is also vocalist and leader Dorothy Martin. She has surrounded herself with a very competent band to create Dorothy.

The sarcastically titled ROCKISDEAD is very much a rock album. But it's so much more than that. It's blues, soul, rock, metal and country (yeah, country, Martin's favorite female vocalist is Dolly and Martin can yodel, though she doesn't on this album). It's messy. It's real. I love albums like that. Genre-bending without pandering to anything.

How this California band got East Texas/Louisiana swamp into their music is a mystery to me, but it works.

I always post a video/song to give the readers a sense of what the band is like. I still will for Dorothy, but you really need to listen to the whole album because one song does not encapsulate what they are all about.

Here is "After Midnight" from the album ROCKISDEAD: