If you look at The Lost Trailers’ website, you’ll see that they claim Bruce Springsteen and Willie Nelson (among others) as influences on their music.  It doesn’t take long to realize the impact Bruce Springsteen has had on this band.  The disc opens with “Longfall,” which is an excellent story.  The song is about a guy that moves to Los Angeles.  His girlfriend, an actress, undergoes plastic surgery and he says she has “a stranger’s face.”  More than dealing with the physical changes of his girlfriend, the guy in the song has to deal with being in a very different place far away from his home.  At one point, the singer says profoundly, “It’s not as bad as it could be but it’s not as good as I thought it would be.”   All I can say to that is, “Welcome to southern California.”  This isn’t the only good storytelling song on the album either.  “Love and War (in a Small Town)” is an excellent portrait of how a war in a distant place can affect small towns and large cities everywhere.

The Lost Trailers do a great job of mixing good rock n roll songs with mellow roots songs.  In that regard, they are similar to Slobberbone.  The Lost Trailers don’t lose anything when they shift from a rock song to a more mellow number.  They put themselves fully into every song they sing.   

The rock n roll songs include “Averly Jane,” “The Battery,” and “Overcrowded Town.”  The piano in both “Averly Jane” and “Overcrowded Town is reminiscent of Cowboy Mouth. The similarity is fleeting but it’s definitely there.  “The Battery” is just a good rock n roll song that sounds like circa 1970’s Rolling Stones.  When you get to this song, you may want to turn up the volume a bit.

My favorite of the more mellow songs is “Walking Blind.”  It sounds like the singer, like the rest of us, is just trying to figure things out.  He says, “My dream keeps getting pulled away from me.”  I think we’ve all been there before.

On this album, The Lost Trailers save the darkest number for last.  “Fire on the Pontchartrain” is a song about a man who discovers his wife is cheating when he finds her lover’s phone number in their baby’s crib.  His solution is, against his nature, to kill her and her lover by blowing up the boat they use for their rendezvous on Lake Pontchartrain.  Without question, it is a heavy song but does not detract at all from a very solid album.

There is not a bad song on this disc.  It is nearly fifty-six minutes of quality music.  I never even entertained the thought of skipping a song on this album.  Skipping a song would be a mistake.  If you like roots music, this is one you’ll probably want to listen to from beginning to end. 

• Visit the Official website.
• Listen to samples and Purchase this CD online

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