Jamestown Revival (16 and Over)

Jamestown Revival have made the quietest record of their career with Young Man, yet it may resonate the most. Recorded in their home state of Texas, it is their first project without electric guitars, with the emphasis instead on skillful songwriting, flawless harmony, and intricate fingerpicking. In addition, it’s the first time that bandmates Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance have created an album with a producer -- in this case, Robert Ellis, a fellow Texan and a recording artist in his own right. “I really think this is an album about coming of age and settling into an identity,” Clay says. “It’s about losing your identity and searching for it. It’s feeling like you found it and then realizing that’s not it. And it’s about our experiences over the last 15 years of making music – the successes and failures and all of those things mixed up together.” Sonically the album draws on inspirations such as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and The Doobie Brothers (particularly “Black Water”), yet there’s also a dusty Western feel to Young Man, similar to a Guy Clark or Townes Van Zandt album where the detailed backdrop and acoustic arrangements convey the story as eloquently as the lyrics do. “This is our first excursion with fiddle and we didn’t hold back,” Chance says. “We wrote a lot of these songs about the questions and the perspectives now that we’re a lot older and have been doing this longer. It’s almost like having a conversation with ourselves at times. We wanted it to feel earthy and rootsy, so the fiddle was a big part of that identity.” A sense of spaciousness came naturally in past projects like 2014’s Utah, recorded in the Wasatch Mountains, and 2019’s San Isabel, recorded in a Colorado cabin. This time, the band opted for a studio for the first time, choosing Niles City Sound in Fort Worth, Texas. Studio co-founder Josh Block engineered Young Man to evoke the experience of musicians huddled together, singing and playing without headphones or click tracks. Chance…