Lovers Leap Combines Talents into Harmony-Rich Debut

It’s not hyperbole to call Lovers Leap a roots music supergroup. After all, the four-piece includes bassist Shelby Means (ex-Delta Mae), clawhammer banjo picker Mary Lucey (ex-Biscuit Burners), guitarist Joel Timmons (Sol Driven Train), and innovative slide guitarist Billy Cardine (Acoustic Syndicate, ex-Biscuit Burners). “Side project” works as a qualifier, too, since it took a year for the band to find enough common downtime to record its self-titled debut EP.

Whatever you choose to call them, one thing’s for certain: These students of bluegrass’s history of three-part harmonies and instrumental interplay bring the sound and skill needed to forge a bright future beyond this initial six-song offering.

Buoyant album opener “Walnut Tree” works as the band’s opening musical statement, highlighting what happens when four distinct acoustic pickers and vocalists join as one. Plus, it makes perfect sense for an ode to nature’s beauty to introduce a band named after a rock outcropping located along the Appalachian Trail in Hot Springs, North Carolina.

The rest of the album showcases each member’s talents without relying on a single strand of folk or bluegrass music. For example, “Red Dawn Awakening” starts off like one of Gillian Welch’s turbulent Appalachian ballads before the band’s joyous harmonies hit full stride. The band then flexes its bluegrass brawn on consecutive upbeat songs about the resilience of true love: “Love is Gonna Live” and “Love Brewed Cold.” The latter offers very sound advice: not even the peppiest morning person should ever go to bed angry at their partner.

Penultimate track “Great Expectations” keeps things unpredictable, as it’s a mid-tempo shot of levity featuring scat-singing in the style of country music legend Roger Miller. Despite its jovial feel, Timmons wrote the song on a particularly horrible day — when van trouble cost Sol Driven Train a chance to open for Sheryl Crow.

The EP ends with a cover of “California Stars” from Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy’s Woody Guthrie tribute, Mermaid Avenue. In the skilled hands of Lover’s Leap, it becomes the type of communal sing- and pick-along Guthrie might’ve recorded himself if he’d lived to see other folkies revolutionize newgrass. It’s a fitting hat-tip to a folk legend whose homespun radio presence did immeasurable good for the preservation and performance of American roots music.

From start to finish, this EP should appeal to fans of harmony-driven folk and bluegrass music, even if they’re unacquainted with members’ prior, award-winning work.