Music Review // Rusty Reid "Bayou Line (Songs from Houston)"

https://rustyreid.com/

https://open.spotify.com/album/2Hojla9yHkMqFRao6dZvvf?autoplay=true

Rusty Reid has been making his claim as a force in this rock n roll based genre of Americana for quite some time and "Bayou Line (Songs from Houston)" just seems to solidify it even more.   This album specifically having Houston in the title is interesting because most people outside of Texas probably think of all of Texas as being cowboys but Houston is very much the melting pop where you can find a cowboy as easily as a hip hop show or a metal band.  

With guitar driven rock n roll, Rusty Reid creates a sound somewhere between country and the blues.   Big keys come out on "Look Out Louisiana" and while living in Houston I always did enjoy how close Louisiana was- just that you felt that connected to that particular region.  "The Sunrise of Our Love" comes through a bit more dreamy, while "Careless" is even more so like Buddy Holly before somehow dropping off into that Blue Oyster Cult sound.

Perhaps the strongest country tones on this album can be heard during "Rio Frio" and then by "A Matter of When" it can get dreamy in that Chris Isaak way.  "Through His Name" feels like a straight out hymn.  "Our Love's With You" has all the melody of a Beatles ballad.  The album closes on "Riding On", which feels like the musical version of just trailing off into the sunset, which is rather fitting.

At their core, these songs are love songs even if they don't always have the word love in the title.  One of the things I like most about the lyrics is that they are very straight forward: they seem to say what they mean.  This ties in with that Americana idea as these are somewhat energetic, sometimes calmer songs about every day people and every day issues.  In that sense this is both highly relatable while also being easy on the ears.