Silos - When the Telephone Rings

Genre rock Publisher Dualtone

With the original lineup down to singer-songwriter-guitarist Walter Salas-Humara, one really can't call this a return to form after two records that disappointed the faithful. Call it a fresh start, with the current political moment, never taken on explicitly but dealt with obliquely, a possible catalyst. There's nothing complicated about why it works: simple but effective lyrics, austere tunes and chords, and a backing band that generates the hardest country rock synthesis this side of the Drive By Truckers.

Salas-Humara deserves the lion's share of the credit for this record's success, but he's got valuable coconspirators, starting with former Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, who jump starts the lead cut with a typically kinetic lead, as well as backing singers Amy Allison and Mary Lee Kortes, who both play Nicolette Larson to his Neil Young. Speaking of Neil Young, evoked by a pair of album titles sloughed in the middle of the lovely "Ready for Anything," it should be noted that while this is no Tonight's The Night, few singer-songwriters have made walking in the master's shoes sound as effortless as this. Couplet to treasure: "I didn't realize we were writing music / I gotta hear the song."