Shoebox Letters Take This Town By Storm
Lee Zimmerman
Posted On May 25, 2016
Eleven albums on, Shoebox Letters have shown themselves to be a band with a deep appreciation for their roots. So it’s especially significant that their new album Love Sick Town finds them ploughing closer to those roots than ever before. The band’s fondness for their Americana forebears has always been evident, especially given the obvious inspiration they gleaned from bands like the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Byrds, the Buffalo Springfield and all the other usual suspect. However this time around they circumvent those reference points and go back to the original sources, sounding at times like Johnny and June, or Merle, Willie, Kris and Waylon at others. Credit then, their stripped down sound, one which takes full advantage of the band’s innate appreciation for down home authenticity and back porch variety, an approach that appears to come straight out of the heartland. So while Shoebox Letters have always applied the lessons they learned with honesty and conviction, here they prove they’re ready to pass those intentions forward and bring those age-old precepts forward into today’s Americana environs.
In truth, Shoebox Letters have been prepping themselves for just such an accomplishment. Their last album, 2015’s The Road Not Taken, worked its way to the top of the Roots 66 airplay chart, a formidable task indeed. The album scored significant airplay throughout the country, making it the band’s most successful effort yet. Significantly then, singers Susan Lowery and Loren Lee have joined charter members Dennis Winslow and David Stricker, offering opportunity to extend that success with a reconfigured, repositioned outfit that offers their most honest and approachable effort yet. Everything comes across without any hint of pretence, be it the unassuming ramble of “Let Me Love You Again and “Lost,” the steady yet unhurried delivery of “I Fall For You,” the assertive call and response and catchy choruses that punctuate “Lucid,” or the sweet and gentle sigh that glides through “Leave Everything.” In fact, there’s not a single song here that doesn’t make an immediate impression, all the more reason to suggest Love Sick Town marks a significant juncture in a journey that’s been quite impressive thus far.
