Review Roundup: Colin Linden and Ana Egge

For yet another week, the slate of worthy new Americana and roots music releases is larger than my opportunity to write full-length reviews. Add in to that preparations for my trip to the Americana Music Festival (watch for a recap here at Concerthopper and follow our socials for pics all week long!) and it's time for another roundup of two albums for your consideration.

Colin Linden- bLOW (Sept 17)
Let's face it. Lucinda Williams could have signed almost anyone as the first artist to represent her new label Highway 20. The Americana icon is so revered in the scene that she likely had her choice of worthy candidates. So it's telling that the artist she chose to represent her entry to label ownership is a name few people outside the industry know... Colin Linden.

If you work in Nashville's music scene or pay attention to album credits (remember when we used to have those inside the CD or vinyl jacket? Good times), Linden is not a stranger to you. The prolific producer, consultant, and session player has spent four decades making Nashville's most successful artists sound good, having played on over 500 albums and producing 140 others, for artists like John Prine, Gregg Allman, Rhiannon Giddens, and Keb Mo, who he won a Grammy with in 2020 for his Oklahoma album. While his new album bLOW isn't the first album with his name on it, it's the first with the promotional muscle of Lucinda Williams behind it.

Coming about when Linden was commissioned to write some Texas/Louisiana blues for a television show, he discovered that the extra songs that didn't make the project were worth fleshing out. And boy was he right. As straightforward an electric blues rock album as has come about in years, Linden channels the best of the Texas bluesmen. “Ain't No Shame” features a guitar tone as close to that of Stevie Ray Vaughan (in this reviewer's opinion, the best to ever pick up a guitar) as anyone has come. “Angel Next to Me” throws back to the early days of Texas electric blues, with a Freddie King vibe. “Boogie Let Me Be” even touches on the rock and roll vibe of Billy Gibbons.

If you're a fan of unvarnished blues rock, well played, well sung, and immaculately produced, then bLOW is an album you'll love digging into.

Ana Egge- Between Us (Sept. 17)
Ana Egge's new album Between Us couldn't be more different than Linden's. Where Linden does a deep dive into a specific genre, Egge refuses to be bound by such conventions. Between Us contains element of the soulful, sometimes fragile, folk music fans have come to expect, but also brings horns, synth, and even some effects to stretch Egge into territory previously uncharted.

The album's good time highlight is also its most out of left field. “Want Your Attention” could be passed off as a Prince deep cut without too much trouble. There's the pop groove, the catchy lyrics, the falsetto, and the r&b counter vocals. It's so unexpected nestled among the ballads that it's a shock to the system the first go 'round but one that quickly gives away to the song's ability to worm its way into your brain and travel down to your booty, which unconsciously begins shaking in time.

But Between Us isn't all party songs. “Lie, Lie, Lie” is a topic that will familiar to many in these divisive times, the desperation and disappointment of watching a loved one succumb to the constant diet of hate and intolerance dished by politicians and “news” outlets to divide by race, economic status, ethnicity, or even something as mundane as whether or not to wear a mask.

For fans of Egge's past work, the stretch should be a welcome thing, the sign of an artist spreading her wings, finding enough comfort in her own skin, and her own voice, to branch out while maintaining the core of herself.