GRACE POTTER & THE NOCTURNALS > This Is Somewhere

Riffing on the title notion Neil Young’s seminal raw rocker Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere on their churning blues roiling release, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals take the shrinkage and moral bankruptcy of America, as it currently stands, and inject it with the hope of the young. “Ah Mary,” the lead track, metaphors as a wildcard girl as endemic of a nation out of control, and the sensual taunt in Potter’s coppery alto knows no falter only toe-to-toe tease.Label: HOLLYWOOD
[RATING: 3.5]

Riffing on the title notion Neil Young’s seminal raw rocker Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere on their churning blues roiling release, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals take the shrinkage and moral bankruptcy of America, as it currently stands, and inject it with the hope of the young. “Ah Mary,” the lead track, metaphors as a wildcard girl as endemic of a nation out of control, and the sensual taunt in Potter’s coppery alto knows no falter only toe-to-toe tease. And it’s that frankness, combined with the jam band expanding funk of a lean four-piece, that drives sheets of B-3 undulation straight into a lacerating guitar screen, that gives the Nocturnals the straight-up thrust that applies the Allman Brothers flex, Heart’s folk/rock hybrid and the Faces no-shame raucousness. “Falling or Flying,” “Lose Some Time” and heart-wrecked “Apologies” all take a fragile beauty on the craggy shores of want and desire, while “Stop the Bus” bulks up the muscle and libido to a full steam ahead proposition.