I remember 2013’s Rain Plans like it was yesterday.
No, really. While I listen to it quite frequently, it had also made me erroneously peg Israel Nash as a gritty, melancholy country songwriter. And I haven’t touched country since I said good-riddance to braces/dentists in high-school. But in reality since Rain Plans, he has put out an expansive album with Silver Season, shifting more towards a more open form of Americana.
From the opening moments of “Rolling On” from Nash’s new album Lifted, all I hear is optimism. It paints an expansive ambiance and slowly drapes that landscape with strings of hope like multiple bunches of wisteria. Incidentally, that comparison is apt because the same chorus is its only vehicle besides the guitar highlights at the very end. It is really very soothing. But then again, when I listened a third time a portmanteau of “Take My Breath Away” (Berlin) and “I Will Follow Him” (Little Peggy March) materialized. Now I can’t get those 5 notes out of my head to keep rolling on. Damn it, where has all the optimism gone?