In the mood for some JJ Cale meets seventies Bonnie Raitt, confessional, rootsy music? Well say hello to Auburn.
Auburn is basically singer Liz Lenten who writes the songs and a hand picked team of Nashville musicians. They would be Thomm Jutz – producer/guitars (Nanci Griffiths, Mary Gauthier, Mac Wise), Mark Fain – bass (Ry Cooder, Ricky Skaggs), Lynn Williams – drums (Delbert McClinton, Lee Roy Parnell, The Wallflowers) and Britt Savage – harmony vocals (Garth Brooks, Crystal Gayle).
It’s a long way from running music groups in Lincolnshire but Ms Lenten obviously believes that only the best will do. The songs certainly come to life with such sympathetic backing while Liz adopts a semi-spoken vocal style over the top. Things never get above a slow canter but when there are songs as good as ‘I Don’t Love Him’, the bluesy ‘I Drank’ and ‘It’s Not Love’ then the one pace really doesn’t matter.
There are strong melodies throughout and anyone partial to the whole Americana vibe type thing will find an awful lot to enjoy here. Plus it would appear that “Game of Faith” has a unique strategy-based card game that will be launched with the album with each song correlating to a card. No, me neither. But it’s a good one.
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