Album Review: Nathan Evans Fox - Heirloom

 

At its best country music serves up quality songwriting to rival any other genre. From the Hillbilly Shakespeare to Haggard, Cash and Van Zandt, to quote a few from the summit, the knack of interpreting the crux of feeling, belonging and being has been transmitted through the medium of the worn and lived-in song. Sometimes you have to scrape away the dirt to find real gems in a sanitised world, and from the influential source of Free Dirt Records surfaces a body of work expressing a true sense of existence. Nathan Evans Fox sweats, polishes and cares about each lyric housed within an album of exquisite depth. HEIRLOOM focusses on a life dealt, lived and challenged. Poetic snippets interject personal musings and you re-enter the light from a delve into a darkened mind to cherish the art of the meaningful song.

Identity comes to the fore in the dozen tracks forming this absorbing record. Family, roots and religion all play a part, frequently through a progressive lens of trying to make sense of it all. Rich vocals extol a blue collar perspective and the sound is firmly embedded in the rural South. Nashville may be the practical base for Nathan Fox Evans but North Carolina is in the veins of the pen capturing a cultural critique. 

Beware, the pieces may not all fit together from an initial handful of plays. The lilt and tone does make instant impact but the subtle meanings and lyric digestion ferment over time.

 ‘Welcome to the world, dear’ is an acute line to start the engine and with cyclical intent the title of the opening song ‘Lots of Beginnings’ forms the final line of the twelfth track ‘I Know the End’ with ‘Cause there’s lots of beginnings, Babe’. In between we get to learn a lot about Nathan Evans Fox and his take on how a life has evolved. 

‘Sevindust’ and ‘Racecar’ are examples of metaphors filtering into the thoughts. The former channels toxicity, while the latter maybe seeks freedom from chained up situations you encounter trying to earn a crust. 

You get a couple of interesting takes on religion in ‘Hillbilly Hymn (Okra and Cigarettes)’ and ‘Jesus and the Buck’. Maybe unconventional but reflecting an unease. ‘The guns are all for shooting clays’ continually leaps out from the first one, while repeated references of ‘When Jesus and big bucks go hand in hand’ is a concluding take from the second. 

Language and experience is often localised, in contrast to sentiment being universal. HEIRLOOM takes you into the mind of one man, and emerging wiser is an engagement reward. Nathan Evans Fox carries the country tag commercially, though this is rooted in the independent sector. However, nothing is by design. Instinct and honesty play a part to curate an album pure to the core. Every age is stocked with golden writing. Sometimes the industry parades it at the top; on other occasions it’s there for those with the will to seek out.