Considering how populated the industry is these days, it's actually a pleasure when a musician pops up with a clear vision of both what they want to do and how they're influences can inspire that. In singer/songwriter Steve Gunn's case, he's had plenty of years playing music with a revolving cast of musicians and ensemble permutations to properly solidify his leanings for jazz and blues and imbue not only that technical precision but the shades of coloring into his dusty plain swept rambles.
While that alone makes for some interesting in its own right, Steve Gunn possess a narrative sweep that manages to parlay unaffected plainspeak with a curious knack for just the right kind of details. It's an entrancing simplicity that never actually insists upon its own simplicity. Gunn's songs are not unlike a casual conversation, a story told by two invested parties that feed off each other to enrich the details. The pair just so happens to be Gunn's lyricism and his band however. Equal weight is given not only to what Gunn sings but to the sounds he's able to draw out of his guitar and his collaborators; where even at their jammiest, their path is still firmly in sight and in no danger of being abandoned in favor of too much flash; of too much sizzle.
"Milly's Garden" offers up more of what Steve Gunn does best. On "Milly's Garden", Gunn conjures the feeling of unfettered expanses both musically and technically while continuing his new role of singing full band leader from Time Off , keeping everything firmly on the rails even as the song gives the impression of spreading out into the infinity.
Steve Gunn's Way Out Weather is out October 7th on Paradise of Bachelors.
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