Bright as You Can

The Catskill Mountains-based band led by Mike Meranda (vocals, guitar, banjo) and Ruthy Ungar (vocals, fiddle, ukulele) do a very fine job of taking the acoustic Americana stylebook and updating it with elements of electric rock, pop and R&B to create an engagingly amalgamated whole. For the Bright as You Can sessions, Meranda and Ungar are joined by a stellar line-up of accompanists including drummer Konrad Meissner, bassist Jacob Silver and pedal steel player Charlie Rose.

The 14 tracks on Bright as You Can run the gamut from fairly traditional-sounding bluegrass ballads, hillbilly hoedowns and country twangers to hybrids such as ‘Golden Eye’, which strike a responsive chord between Nashville slickness and Motown funkiness with a sassy horn section.