Tight Tunes and Whispers of Tom Petty

When Hot Buttered Rum released “Country Tunes and Love Songs,” the lead single off the new album Lonesome Panoramic, vocalist/guitarist Nat Keefe said the band had “the memory of Tom Petty whispering in our ears.”

The statement was certainly true of that song, which has the feel of Petty circa Wildflowers, but it also serves as an interesting prism through which to interpret Lonesome Panoramicin its entirety. It’s not a new musical direction; Hot Buttered Rum hasn’t suddenly eschewed the bluegrass-cum-folk style the group’s reputation was built upon in favor of Byrds-style Southern garage rock.

It’s in the construction of the songs that the comparison is apt. The baker’s dozen tunes on Lonesome Panoramic blend a laconic regional nature, in this case Marin County, California, with some of the band’s tightest material to date.

These subtleties take some time to reveal themselves. Lonesome Panoramic opens with the one-two punch of “You Can Tell” and “Sittin Here Alone,” ramshackle bluegrass stompers that would be at home on any installment of the three-part The Kite and the Key EP series released over the past few years. Then “Country Tunes and Love Songs” comes up and the changes reveal themselves.

The essence of Hot Buttered Rum is still there – the mandolin, the fiddle, the banjo – but it’s what the band does within that structure that’s different. Lurking behind each song is a rhythmic urgency that’s less prog-bluegrass and more rock oriented.

Case in point: “Treasure Island Blues.” It departs from the jammier, Grateful Dead-inspired tendencies the group has leaned on in the past. In its stead is a country-rocker that would fit right in on a Mudcrutch album.

Pulling off a cohesion comparable to that of a muscular rock band is what imbues and drives the bulk of Lonesome Panoramic. “When that Lonesome Feeling Comes” is a shufflin’ boogie, but Hot Buttered Rum struts on it. They sound leaner, packing a compact punch previously unrevealed in their repertoire.

Even when stretching out for an extended number, the band maintains that aesthetic. “The One that Everybody Knows” moves, anchored by a steady groove for its entire 8-minute running time. Even during Erik Yates’ banjo and Zebulon Bowles’ fiddle solos, drummer James Stafford’s beat is still thumping, keeping the song’s melodic focus from drifting astray.

That’s where “the memory of Tom Petty” comes in. He knew how to write a concise song. It didn’t matter if it was “Don’t Do Me Like That” or “You Don’t Know How It Feels.” Nothing on his best material felt extemporaneous or like it didn’t ultimately serve to move the song along.

And this is why Lonesome Panoramic is different than the bulk of Hot Buttered Rum’s oeuvre. Over its 15-plus-year career, the band has proven itself capable of pulling together strands of country, folk, bluegrass, and jam music into an energetic, good-time experience. But with the batch of well-crafted, sharply performed tunes they cooked up on Lonesome Panoramic, Hot Buttered Rum has managed to blend its ragged charms with that of a well-oiled musical machine.