Son Volt - Electro Melodier

2020 was not quite what Jay Farrar was expecting for the 25th anniversary of Son Volt, the band he started in 1995 after leaving the seminal group Uncle Tupelo, whose No Depression album helped define the alt-country and Americana genre. The group had just finished an Outlaw Country Cruise when the pandemic hit and sent them into their homes on lockdown. Instead of a triumphant tour marking the illustrious landmark, Farrar was forced indoors by the pandemic, and his "Reverie" during that time helped define Electro Melodier, Son Volt's 10th studio album - and third for influential Nashville indie Thirty Tigers. The title, taken from the names of two vintage amplifiers from the late '40s and early '50s, also describes the disc's unique blend of folk, country, blues, soul and rock - an electric troubadour with melodies that hit and stick. Social protest songs like "Living in the U.S.A." and "The Globe," the former about the promises of this nation gone wrong, the latter referencing the street protests accompanying the Black Lives Matter movement, exist side by side with odes to long-term relationships (specifically his 25-year marriage) in "Diamonds and Cigarettes" and "Lucky Ones."