The Blue Highways - Out On The Line (self-released)

I know that calling anything remotely Springsteen-esque in the alt-country/americana genre is akin to the whole “new Dylan” cliche in folk music, but I will go ahead and say it. The Blue Highways are very Springsteen-esque. Not in any plagiaristic or plundering way, but their songs do capture the same spirit of life, the same spark of ambition, and the same restlessness. And, similarly, like he who shall not be named again in this review, even when talking about small-town lives, when sonically sketching their own turnpike operas and back alley ballets, the mood is never less than celebratory.

And if, to the American ear at least, there seem to be other flavours at work beyond the blue-collar, Heartland rock at work, it is worth knowing that The Blue Highways are actually from, wait for it …London, England! And it is that ability to have a biker-booted (presumably) foot in the Old World and the New, in both established sounds and forward-thinking, of-the-moment creativity, that means they are accountable neither to genre nor geography, giving them room to create a new take on things.

Recommending key songs gets tricky, but only because almost all of the songs found here sound like singles, not first singles perhaps, but certainly the sort of thing that should be nipping up the charts to kick arse and cut the mustard, to remind the mainstream that help is at hand in such dark times.

Songs such as “Nobody Lives Here Anymore”, an explosion of incendiary guitars and soaring vocal deliveries. Songs such as the shimmering and cautionary “Streetlights” and the spiralling and coiled riffs are “Land of The Free”. And even the dulcet acoustic minimalism of “Tonight” would be the best ballad the mainstream had heard in a long time, no rapped middle-eight, no dance routine, no auto-tuner vocals, just a song forged of passion.

It’s an album of spirit and resilience. An album about the power of the individual human to stay the course or make a break for it, to realise that what they want is already right in front of them or a long way over the horizon. But more than its ability to take you by the hand and lead you through a collection of stories that read like a John Osborne play or a Kerouac encounter, it is an album of fantastic songs. And that is perhaps all that really matters. Dontchathink?