Dana Immanuel & the Stolen Band - 'Come With Me' - cover (300dpi)It only seems like ten minutes since the last Dana Immanuel album, “Dotted Lines”, was released and now we’ve got another one. “Come with Me” is Dana’s third album, although it’s being described as the debut of Dana & The Stolen Band, so the fairly equal split between songs from each of Dana’s two solo albums and new songs seems about right. Apparently it was recorded live-ish to catch the chemistry of the band’s interesting instrumental line-up featuring Dana (banjo, vocals and guitar), Feadora Morris (guitars and banjo), Blanche Ellis (vocals, washboard and thimbles), Maya McCourt (cello, vocals and upright bass)  and Hjordis Moon Badford (cajon and foot tambourines).

What Dana and the band have achieved on “Come with Me” is to subvert the macho culture of Outlaw Country by showing that the sisters can do it for themselves, competing with the boys in the bad behaviour stakes whether it’s the cocaine of the claustrophobic title track, playing the casino tables (“Devil’s Money” and “Viva Las Vegas”) or misguided sexual encounters (“Clockwork”). There’s no holding back lyrically and even the musical arrangements subvert the genre by using cello to round out the bottom end of the sound and contrasting the tones of cello, banjo and distorted guitar. The line-up of the band falls somewhere between a bluegrass string band and a rock outfit, creating possibilities for unusual textures not normally heard in either genre.

If you like your tunes to swing a little, there’s a bit of that in the jazzy stylings of “Achilles Heel” and “John Wayne” and the vocal harmonies add yet another dimension on “Nashville”, and particularly the a cappella counterpoint in the coda of “Going to the Bottle”. The album’s closing song, a new take on “Viva Las Vegas”, usually tackled as a cover version with macho posturing and bluster, is driven along by a cello riff and the usual Stolen Band harmonies, distancing it from the Elvis or Springsteen versions.

At times this album’s tough and uncompromising, but there’s always a sense that the entire band’s having a blast just doing this stuff, and not sticking to any arbitrary rules. Combine that with great musicianship and the result’s always going to be interesting.  And I’m grateful that the press release warned me about the ‘explicit!’ lyrics to “Motherfucking Whore”; I’d never have guessed from the title.

“Come with Me” is released on Friday August 5th and the band’s touring throughout the summer.

Dana Immanuel - 'Dotted Lines' -TitleI have to admit it; when a press release describes the artist as “banjo-toting, whiskey-drinking, poker-playing singer-songwriter currently operating from a north London hideout” it does grab your attention. With those influences, you wouldn’t expect an album full of moonin’ and Junin’ lyrics and you wouldn’t be wrong. Dana Immanuel’s second album, “Dotted Lines”, is a fascinating mixture of lyrical invention, painful honesty some psychedelic production and arrangements pulling elements in from her varied and interesting background to create eight songs that give us a sometimes disturbing insight into her life. That’s right, only eight songs, but none of them make me reach for the skip button, so I don’t have a problem with that.

The album’s opener and title track tells you immediately that we’re not in Kansas any more; there’s banjo, distorted slide guitar, breaking bottles and reversed sounds as a framework for a story of metaphorically disrespected boundaries. It’s part Americana, part psychedelia and part musique concrete and it’s not often I get the chance to say that. The musical invention is present throughout the album, from the thunderous bass and reversed backing vocals of “Rock Bottom” to the military beat and massed counterpoint of “Going to the Bottle” and there’s verbal dexterity in the lyrics as well (how about ‘It’s not my primary intention to find chemical redemption’) although there’s always a fine line between smart and too much, which the album just about stays on the right side of.

The two slower songs towards the end of the album stand out as more personal, dealing surprisingly gently with an artistic groupie (“Life in Colour”) and the need to be completely selfish in order to succeed in the music business (“Be like Arnie”) using fiddle and trumpet respectively for some additional colour. There are references to gambling, drinking and failed relationships throughout the album (not surprisingly given Dana’s background) but there’s also “Mile High”, an interesting take on the life of airline cabin crew. It’s certainly an interesting mix and it’s not an album that permits boredom because there’s always something new around the corner. The songs may be strong meat, but Dana’s pure, and sometimes delicate, voice rounds away some of the sharp edges creating bitter-sweet vignettes.

Out on Friday 16th October.