Workin' and Dreamin'

Hoth Brothers share an abiding affinity for unadulterated folk, old-time and classic country music and a hatred of the current president of the US. Both impulses bear deliciously tart fruit in Workin' and Dreamin', the band's epic 16-track debut, which was conceived in 2017 when fellow songsmiths Boris McCutcheon and Bard Edrington V found themselves picking apples in the same New Mexico orchard. The album opens with ‘Trees of Heaven’, a rollicking, biblically primed demolition of Donald Trump (‘Who's gonna fell the Orange Man? We will’) and his vice president (‘Who's gonna send the devil Pence back to Hell forever hence? We will’).

With slapdash Appalachian aplomb, ‘Whiskey and a Woodstove’ celebrates the moonshiner's life on harp, guitar and clawhammer banjo. ‘Rogue Wave’ slides back and forth between an electro-swing shuffle and a Nashvegas-stle love song as if they naturally belonged together. Expertly supported by Greg Williams on percussion and Sarah Ferrell on upright bass and occasional high harmony, McCutcheon and Edrington share appealingly gritty vocal duties while deftly handling an assortment of guitars, banjos, mandolins and harmonicas. The whole shebang makes for a poignant and highly enjoyable listening experience.