New England-based band Rock Hearts may hail from an improbable region of the United States for bluegrass music. However, the distinct Southern heritage of the genre doesn’t impede aspiring musicians from absorbing its lessons and performing music in that vein consistently. Innumerable musical movements throughout history prove this. If you have any regional biases, check them at the door.
State lines vanish while listening to Rock Hearts’ new album Unfinished Bridges. Mandolin virtuoso Billy Thibodeau, guitarist Alex MacLeod, bassist Rick Brodsky, banjo player Joe Deetz, and fiddle player Austin Scelzo share musical telepathy far outstripping the relatively brief time they have played as an unit; they move through each of Unfinished Bridges’ thirteen songs as if it is their life’s calling. They inhabit every word and note.
“Unfinished Bridges” opens the album with surprising gravitas. Rock Hearts proves willing to plunge listeners headlong into its songwriting world of adult concerns, but the elegiac tone struck by the title song is never a slog. There is a palpable melancholic mood hanging over Eric Gnezda and Mark Brinkman’s song, but life-affirming strengths are plentiful. Rock Hearts delivers it with an airy and measured treatment that realizes the song’s potential.
The songwriting team of Jim Karnes and Bob Amos co-wrote “Daddy Dixon”, and it’s the album’s second longest cut. It conveys a nostalgic temperament through accumulated details rather than a sweeping statement encapsulating the theme. Rock Hearts lays down the track as a mid-tempo amble, loose-limbed, light on its feet. The innate musicality of the performance sweetens its message.
“I Know It’s Wrong to Love You” is one of Unfinished Bridges’ undisputed zeniths. David and Don Parmley’s classic country ballad holds up nicely as a bluegrass cut. Rock Hearts emphasizes the construction despite re-envisioning “I Know It’s Wrong to Love You” as clear-cut Americana. Each of the players shines, but Austin Scelzo’s fiddle scales new heights. Guitarist Alex MacLeod’s “Pretty Little Bird” never tailors itself around the six-string. The same broad instrumental appeal distinguishing Unfinished Bridges’ best songs elevates this gently uplifting late album track.
Bluegrass songwriting talent Rick Lang, along with co-writer Theodore Chase DeMille, contribute one of Unfinished Bridges’ mightiest moments. “Tall Stands of Timber” is near-novelistic storytelling captured in song, and the wealth of concrete detail woven through the song’s lyrics makes it one of the album’s best songwriting examples. MacLeod’s second songwriting contribution, “Let Me Be the Best Bible”, has a vague Stanley Brothers-ish vibe present throughout the song’s entirety, and the arrangement’s gentle hypnotic sway holds your attention from the first.
One of mandolin player Billy Thibodeau’s two songwriting contributions, “I Hardly Never Ever Think of You”, closes Unfinished Bridges. It’s heartache disguised as a romp, and the clever songwriting never overplays its hand. Rock Hearts’ album overflows with such moments, and the musicians tap into an apparently inexhaustible pipeline of inspiration. It never flags on Unfinished Bridges. Rock Hearts’ new album sparkles with a sense of purpose and unflappable direction; if you hear it once, you’ll keep listening.
Chadwick Easton