Lee Miles has a band. No longer the lone ranger, he’s found a collective that taps into his inspiration and does it true justice. Being a passionately earthy fellow, this album is a purging of all things held dear and a violent assault against obstructers of the human spirit. It’s a true exercise in the broad expanse of our beloved Americana. The country western stomp of Johnny Cash and Bobby Bare, the crushing lyrical bite of Bob Dylan and the poetic sneer of alternative-country pioneer Howe Gelb. The songs are laden with a delicate undercurrent of electric guitar twang that crawls beneath the skin and brings the songs to a stark realization.
These are songs written for the people by a man who lives by the sweat of his brow and does so with a keen sense of observation and an acute realization of what is truly ours. Songs written for those who choose to exist beneath the tumultuous current, a place that allows us to exercise our personal freedoms as living beings on this earth with little resistance. “Ophelia, Ophelia you blackened my eye. You’ve given me wrong in a time of right and I thank you. I make little livings. I’m stealin’ and beggin’ just waitin’ for endings.” Here is understanding of the beauty, struggle, the moments of despair and all the glorious triumphs in between, welcoming hardship and pain with open arms not as a setback, but as an opportunity for self-check and realizing what little we have to lose with our mundane worries. It’s a hard concept to truly come to terms with, but as evident in Heathen Blux, living the nitty gritty simple and uncertain is a damned challenge but nothing on this earth will ever prove as rewarding.
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