Micah P Hinson & the Red Empire Orchestra

Micah P Hinson's fourth album - the first I've heard since his powerful debut `Michah P Hinson and the Gospel of Progress' - is an accomplished work and the sound of a prolific artist heading for an artistic peak. Produced by alt-rock mixing guru John Congleton, renowned for the dark gloss put on albums by the likes of Anthony & the Johnsons, Modest Mouse and Explosions in the Sky, `Micah P. Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra' is somehow both expansive and concise, brooding but melodic. Much is made of Hinson's troubled past, and I imagine his record label see the value in backing up his cracked baratone with claims of former drug and alcahol addiction, time in prison and, um, chain-smoking, as if to add gravitas to his skinny geek looks. None of those claims of authenticity should really matter when listening to this fine record however, which, like the music of Johnny Cash, is in fact more theatre than fact and all the better for it.

Not as nakedly personal as his debut, Hinson's latest finds him sounding somehow at home in a more stylised study of Americana. A relatively lush take on folksy alt-country, `...Red Empire Orchestra' dips into Scott Walker-esque melodrama, the border country menace of Calexico, chamber pop and, on `We Won't Have To Be Lonesome', 1950s surf pop in the mould of Richard Hawley. Similar to (but better than, in my opinion) Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan's `Sunday At Devil Dirt', `... Red Empire Orchestra' takes its cues from Lee Hazlewood and, of course, The Man in Black, whose music was always knowingly cinematic, much more interested in American myth than bruised confession.

Highlights for me include the somnambulant Badalamente-baroque of `Sunrise Over The Olympus Mons', which throws a curveball Jim O'Rourke squall of guitar distortion into its reverb heavy brew. The textural abrasion melds blissfully into the song's Phil Spectoresque swoon. Likewise, a playful lyrical malice adds bite to the sweet chamber pop of `I Keep Havin' These Dreams', which repeats the title refrain before adding "... that you were all I needed". Not exactly a statement of undying love. The jaunty, banjo-led `When We Embraced' is as tight and infectious as any song as Hinson has ever written, despite being stripped down to Tom Waits' trademark skeletal barroom shuffle.

Waits also informs the whiskey-soaked opener 'Come Home Quickly Darlin", while it is a Scott Walker influence that adds high theatre to the extraordinary `You Will Find Me'. Beginning in Calexico territory - namely some nightime American desert frontier - it suddenly swells into enormous wall-of-sound crescendos and Hinson upping the histrionics, his gravelly tones suggestive of a penitent, dustblown rogue who got "lost on the way home". It's rousing, imaginative stuff, but rarely portentous: despite it's black moods there's a dark humour here too. Enjoy.

Described as `Violent Country' you would be expecting a fusion of Country and Punk, however what we get is an enchanting and positively enjoyable album of Acoustic Country tracks. Micah P Hinson has the voice of a 60 year old heavy smoker, but in fact is a fresh-faced 20-something. He could be the bastard son of Johnny Cash with both voice and attitude and indeed both have a parallel of drugs and jail time, though Micah can also boast a turbulent relationship with a Vogue cover model and experiencing the bottom of the barrel with bankruptcy and telemarketing...add to this temporarily being paralysed after his mate hit him on the back, meaning he had to where a corset, was in hospital for weeks and, "Couldn't piss standing up for a while," might make you want to sing the Blues...

Now if you are expecting some fast paced toe-tappers then, Son, you're in the wrong place, as the self-titled album of Micah P Hinson And The Red Empire Orchestra plays out in the background of a warm summer's afternoon, at a time when you've worked all morning and whilst nursing a beer, you are feeling contemplative and spent. First song, `Come Home Quickly, Darlin'' could've been recorded anytime within the history of music, and only in the smooth production do you know that it must be fairly recent. Like with a lot of the songs here it is a slow plod giving the listener more chance to think about the lyrics and emerge into the deep ambience of the music.

We have the Country twang of, `Tell Me It Ain't So' that muddles along with a nice little beat, piano and strings, "Constantly craving what isn't mine," Micah confesses. However, in the wonderfully simple, `When We Embrace', which has a slightly jovial jig to it, you can close your eyes and imagine Johnny Cash singing a Chuck Ragan tune in a quite satisfying daydream. The strings play a big part in the melody of, `I Keep Havin' These Dreams' and as you would expect there is a hint or two of a lullaby in the tune.

Once again some of the best tracks here are the short catchy numbers and `Threw A Stone' is one of those. It plays over a little acoustic melody, with Micah's deep dulcet tones crooning over the top in his Texas drawl, and the mischievous sound of a fiddle dancing around halfway through. `Sunrise Over The Olympus Mons' can be forgiven for sounding a little samey as a couple of the songs before, whereas, `The Fire Came Up To My Knees' is slightly annoying in respect to the fact that there is very little backing music apart from some dull guitar strumming, however it is not this that annoys me, but the fact that I think that Micah has missed an opportunity here, as after the first verse I am expecting it to suddenly jump into an upbeat tempo number, with the sudden cacophony of drums and guitar, however you find your self trying to wind the song on, and feeling like you've experienced an anti-climax...

Now a real head turner is the Rockabilly meets Surf Rock of the `50's slide guitar number, `You Will Find Me' which you think is going to be a haunting instrumental until just after 100 seconds before we get a song that has flashes of a musical crescendo and you get a song unlike anything else here. Strangely, the song almost disappears with a minute to go, big reappears a few seconds later...

With string picking and hard piano keys, the short song, `The Wishing Well And The Willow Tree' follows nicely and has the beauty of both musical and vocals complementing each other perfectly. There is then some straight up Country in the fantastic, `We Won't Have To Be Lonesome' before the Mr Hinson concedes to, `Dyin' Alone' to wrap up the album.

If a more traditional Country artist is to break into the mainstream then Micah P Hinson is the person to do it, however there are probably one too many slow songs here, and so it's easy to skip on to the next track without giving him the benefit of the amount of listens that will get you hooked. It's timeless music, and whilst we have a handful of female singers bring back the Jazz/Blues into contemporary music, there is no reason why Acoustic Country can't go the same way. Good honest acoustic music can't ever fail in my book.

Micah P. Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra is the third album from the American singer-songwriter following his first two records with the 'Gospel Of Progress' and the 'Opera Circuit.' Early listens suggest this is a very different record from the first two. Whilst opener 'Come Home Quickly Darlin' and 'When We Embraced' are textbook Micah P. Hinson, songs such as 'I Keep Havin' These Dreams' and 'Sunrise Over The Olympus Mons' are alot more sparse and owe more to instrumentation. Although the album initially seems not to meet the standards of the first two, not only was that going to be difficult given the high standard set by Micah himself, the album appears to grow and unearth itself the more you listen. A 5 Star album no doubt, but where it will rank against other Hinson records will become clearer in time.