Scott Everhardt hews to the singer-songwriter guitar-harmonica tradition with bright promise in his debut disc, but needs to learn to play at a different tempo and in a different key now and then. A little of this record goes a long way.
The North Carolina transplant to Seattle made the move with little of the grit of the South in his luggage, except in his effectively evocative middle tenor. The playing is clean, his midtempo vamp strumming carries the lyrical meter on its back, and his imagery, while personal, is accessible. The highlights are “Travel Down The Railway Line”, with a cool riff and a catchy slur in hastening each line of the vocal; “Susanna Eyes Of Fire”, with its slack-string blues lick; and “Drunk Reservation Blues”, full of poignant question-couplets followed by poetic answers (“And do your mountains stand tall?/They’re poking above the clouds wrapped around them like a shawl”).
There are no major epiphanies or revelations here. The disc shows the promise of a confident young songwriter, but this isn’t the laurel to rest on.