Grant-Lee Phillips, In the Hour of Dust (digital outlets)

Grant-Lee Phillips – formerly of Grant-Lee Buffalo -- holds a special place in Elsewhere's heart because we once started a three month drive across the US with one of his albums in CD player.

It was Mobilize and the opening track was See America, a weary song with poignant lyrics: “We're asking for directions, yes. We're off to see America, we're tumbling in our chariot, speeding over soaking streets, tides of the destitute wail, coughing up a lung of steam rise from the underground rail. Never felt so far away”.

It's a great song and you deserve to hear it.

See America

The opener on this album has a similarly weary and beaten tone as he looks at his America and the political climate with despair. It is called Little Men: “Nothing lesser than emancipation, baby there’s no sweeter song. Little men who want to rule like Caesar, can’t hold the tide off for long.”

He returns to the idea on Bullies with “what a friendless place it’s become. Senseless, ask anyone. Hard to believe, the one that you know will be different tomorrow. Love to make a fool of us on the schoolyard again. Oh, the world is full of bullies, you just can’t give in to them”.

And on Dark Ages: "I can see it now, in days to come all of these dark ages behind us. All behind us, behind us."

Phillips' gift is the way he delivers tough observations with a sense of sadness but not defeat. He also deploys real world images and probes beneath them, as on the lovely Closer Tonight.

“Driverless cars on Market Street, around every corner. But what is to stop us before we turn on each other?”

With his penetrating and empathetic lyrics delivered on acoustic guitar as smart singer-songwriter pieces embellished gently (strings sometimes) with something of a folk-country feel to their pop structure, this is another damn good album -- with personal love songs too -- by one of America's finest.

You deserve to hear it . . . and pretty much every solo album he's done.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here