Stream: Rose’s Pawn Shop, ‘What Were You Waiting For?’

Kevin Bronson on October 8th, 2014

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You’d think Hollywood was situated at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains from hearing Rose’s Pawn Shop’s finger-pickin’-good new album. “Gravity Well” races along to the steady heartbeat of American traditional music, a little less dress-up than much of the folk that’s been tailored for mainstream pop tastes but no less emotional and catchy. It’s the third album from the L.A. quintet of Paul Givant (lead vocals, guitar banjo), Tim Weed (fiddle, mandolin), John Kraus (banjo, guitar), Stephen Andrews (bass) and Christian Hogan (drums), and their first since 2010. Produced by Ted Hutt (the Gaslight Anthem, Flogging Molly, Lucero, Old Crow Medicine Show), “Gravity Well” occasionally relies on well-worn “whoa-oh-oh” tropes, but mostly the album’s harmony-rich storytelling has an organic feel. Or, when Givant sings about “passing out at 3 a.m. in some stranger’s yard,” you believe it’s happened.

||| Stream: “What Were You Waiting For?”