Review - Rivers & Roads “Kickin’ Dust”

independent mini-album

Introduced by way of the Big Backyard’s “SxSW 1999 sampler”, Rivers & Roads is a 5pc with a country bent and a sound as country as anyone else you’d care to choose from today’s crop of country successes either side of the Pacific. But that is where the country input ends!

Based as far from the country as possible in Sydney’s affluent Eastern Suburbs, “Kickin’ Dust” was recorded by Marshall Cullen at DGSS, the home of many an alternative hit and the “Grow Your Own” series. Mastering was by Meredith Brooks at Soundwarp, credits usually adourning many from the Troy Horse stables. It is this mix of alternative and country that has created a record which utilises nuances of the harder edged facilities to the nouveau-country advantage, especially with the dry drums and dead-studio bass sounds of Shocking Days.

BBY certainly backed a winner by including Rivers & Roads on their last compilation, and there is little doubt that exposure in the States will lead to bigger and better things there due mainly to the lack of the clichès found too often in country music here. Rivers & Roads “Kickin Dust” scores «««««

 PG (Jacky) Gleeson