If Americana music is created by combining various musical styles and distinctive sounds that are uniquely American, ones that seem to reflect what it means to experience life in that great country, then Americaña feels like what happens if you tease that sound apart slightly. What you get, rather than an album with a consistent sound throughout, is one that digs in and explores all those sonic facets.
The result is an album of songs that weave in and out of rock, soul, country, and blues, to various degrees, blends and binds, teases and taunts, and then garnishes the result with additional flavors and deft sonic touches.
Take opening salvo, “Saturday Night,” which sets the tone perfectly, a rootsy-rock ‘n’ roll ride, a celebration of those heady nights wandering from bar to bar, drinking, dancing, fighting, flirting, taking in good music and great company, a song that embodies the party atmosphere, shot through with barrelhouse piano and groove aplenty.
But as I said, it’s an album that is more about adventure than expectation, more about creativity than comfort zones. So we find country soul ballads with “Dark Forest Trees,” lilting folk drinking songs thanks to “Me or The Whiskey,” and the lilting, upbeat indie-rock shimmer of “Cheers, Amigo.” Joshua Espinosa hops from one genre to another, merging, melding, and matching sounds, finding new common ground, drawing lines between 70s classic rock and 90s alternative. There are echoes of New Orleans spice and songs infused with soulful seduction, groove and jive, fun and fantastic creativity. No where is off limits, nowhere that musically matters, at least.
As great as the music is, and it is, Joshua Espinosa also proves to be the master storyteller, and at the heart of each song is something human. Whether it is someone celebrating a relationship or coming to terms with getting older, there are songs about regret and guilt, love and loss, and longing…basically all the stuff of life.
Americana, as a genre, might have been forced together, probably by lazy journalists like me, into a distinct sound or style. But Americaña is something more honest; it is the sound of American life reflected in every cool lick and sonic groove that runs through this album, and indeed, that country’s musical DNA.
