Brett Eugene Ralph’s raw country noire

This is the second time in a week that I’m covering artists that emerged out of Louisville’s hardcore punk scene, though with the first, Coliseum, you could tell, and with the second, Brett Eugene Ralph’s Kentucky Chrome Review, I challenge you to find a trace of it. Ralph is a writer first, a musician secondarily, but he’s pretty good at the music part, too, and he brings in a whole passel of bold-faced collaborators to this project: Catherine Irwin, Jason Loewenstein, Will and Paul Oldham, Wink O’Bannon, Paz Lenchantin and others. My review went up today at Dusted, beginning:

“Traditional sounding, with its stately fiddles, close harmonies and Americana-rooted melodies, Brett Eugene Ralph’s Kentucky Chrome Review is, like all country worth listening to, nonetheless wildly unconventional and rebellious. There’s no moral certitude, no just desserts in these songs. It’s country without the god and patriotism, a non-judgmental peephole into landscapes of teenage strippers, abusive fathers, murderous boyfriends and unfettered, unglamorous dissolution.”

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