Review Roundup: Secret Emchy Society and Laney Jones

As happens regularly this time of year, the flood of new album releases, and specifically outstanding releases I don't want you to miss out on, is coming on faster than my one man and two ears show can keep up with individually. So, this week, I'm doing another Review Roundup, this time with two albums that released May 20: Laney Jones' Stories Up High and Secret Emchy Society's Gold Country/Country Gold.

Laney Jones- Stories Up High
Like many of the artists you see featured here, my first exposure to Laney Jones came via Americanafest, as an opener for Dom Flemons and Willie Watson. At that show, I was impressed by her high energy performance and intelligent lyrics, which shone through on her 2016 self-titled album. In the years since, Jones has grown significantly as an artist and, like most of us, been affected by the state of the world these past few years. The result of those years of growth and trial is Stories Up High, an album more personal, more introspective, but no less dynamic than its predecessor.

For Stories Up High Jones worked with producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff), teaming up for an album that shimmers, smokes, and flat out rocks to fit the mood of the song. On the album's title track, she wrestles with where infatuation ends and true feelings begin. “Are you too good to be true? Is it my twisted point of view? That shapes the twinkle of your smile, are you a friendly crocodile?” Later in the song, she finds contentment in her decision to let the unknown be. “I fell from stories up high. I died a little inside. But if I had a crystal ball, I would never have lived at all.”

Contrasting that is the album's true highlight and first single, “Not Alone.” Backed by a fuzzed guitar and a swelling chorus, Jones provides a musical vaccine for the loneliness, despair, and detachment felt during COVID-19 restrictions. “All of the books I've read, the music that fills my head, I carry them with me wherever I go, I'm not alone.”

It's been six years since Laney Jones graced us with an album and, while seeing the maturity those years have brought is satisfying for fans of that first album, here's hoping she doesn't wait another six years for the next. This is an artist with too many ideas, and too many interesting ways to interpret those ideas, to deprive us of them for too long.

Secret Emchy Society- Gold Country/Country Gold
If Laney Jones brought us subtlety and introspection, Secret Emchy Society brought us bombast and outlaw country shenanigans, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The band led by Cindy Emch is at the vanguard of the modern queer country movement, not so much a genre as an insistence on inclusion in a genre that's never been known for its willingness to change (hence the birth of Americana, the place where people too black or gay or liberal to fit into country music's tiny box gather to throw better parties).

Musically, Secret Emchy Society is as outlaw as the most strident Johnny Cash song. They might not shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die, but they will damn sure drink him under the table. But there's a playfulness in that interpretation of boozy barroom country that acknowledges the cartoonishness of gallons of whiskey and bars with more fights than a UFC card while never crossing over into self-parody.

The album starts with a bang, presenting a cover of Willie Nelson's (by way of songwriter Ned Sublette) groundbreaking “Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other.” Emch gives it an Ennio Morricone makeover and it's pretty hard not to hear lyrics like “inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out” and not imagine it playing over a Clint Eastwood face off in 'A Fistful of Dollars.' My guess is Eastwood wouldn't be a fan (nor, if recent news is an indicator, would it make Sam Elliott's Spotify playlist), but it sure is a lot of fun for those of us willing to explore.

Another pure Secret Emchy Society song is “I Murdered Your Bourbon.” Again, if you have to ask what it's about, you aren't paying attention. “It's said that ole Jesus turned water to wine. If he'd worked a bit harder, could have turned it to rye” leaves no doubt.

If you're looking for a tender exploration of the human condition, you're going to want to find another album (may I recommend Amy Speace's Tuscon). But if you like your country hard wearing, hard drinking, hard driving, and hard livin', Secret Emchy Society's got just what you bellied up to the bar for.