157: Colin Miller - Thunder Road
So much of life now is spent trying to wrap my head around unfathomable passages of time that just don't make sense. GoldFlakePaint will be 15 years old next month, for one example. Carrie & Lowell came out ten years ago, for another. As such, it's bizarre and refreshing to find that it's only been 18 months since Colin Miller released Haw Creek, a beautiful little record that I've probably listened to as much as any other released in that timeframe.
It feels like it should be longer for that reason and others. I feel like I know it too well, have walked far longer within the world it creates. Beautifully detailed and realised, Miller writes dusty little indie rock songs that burrow into your conscience, quietly but with purpose. Listen to Haw Creek's opening song, Sweetheartmetalbaby, right now and you'll feel like you've always known it. Somewhere, somehow.
That album's (surprisingly) swift follow-up was just released, a new nine-song album called Losin' that features MJ Lenderman (whose band Miller is a member of) as wel as Ethan Baechtold and Xandy Chelmis of Lenderman's other band Wednesday.
Miller's craft rings unclean and true throughout, these sweet-and-sad country songs full of heavy hearted sentiments that feel all the more affecting for the layer of dust that sits on top of them; photograph albums hidden away in the back of a cupboard, hiding all their stories and characters, deep and half-forgotten.
This time it's the closing track that lands heaviest. Thunder Road, but not a cover, just a story held within that record's spin; slamming screen-doors, singing for the lonely. It's a beautiful idea, beautifully realised. Miller's voice is as captivating as ever, bruised and splintered, the playing is true and subtle allowing the whole thing to swirl together like a waltz across a messy bedroom floor.
We ain't that young anymore – but show a little faith, there's magic here, in the tender and tumultuous spin of it all.
Singing Thunder Road karaoke
to a disco ball that won’t spin
So it’s just me and Mary’s dress in the wind
In a cul de sac
with a potato gun
Decapitating dead end signs
So there is no end
Til there is no end
there is no no no end
Pedal to the metal
I got you on my mind
And you can put your shoes under my bed
Anytime
I’m bad to be your one and only
Living junior
Lay right next your snow angel forever
Pedal to the metal
I got you on my mind
And you can put your shoes under my bed
Anytime
Anytime, anytime, anytime, anytime
Singing Thunder Road karaoke
to a disco ball that won’t spin
So it’s just me and Mary’s dress in the wind
Colin Miller's Losin' LP is out now – and I can't recommend it highly enough
Buy/listen via Bandcamp here
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