Kevin Bronson on October 11th, 2022

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Pearl Derringer has played it pretty close to the vest since their (her?) debut single, “Little Baby,” was released in May. If you believe the bio, the band’s namesake is a mystical character who crashed a musicians’ walkabout in Joshua Tree and co-opted the proceedings. No word on whether any peyote was involved, but an album’s worth of songs emerged.

We do know this, ’cause we read credits ’n stuff: Jessi Williams (once of the Lonely Wild) co-produced the video for the title track, “The Fool.” The aforementioned debut single, “Little Baby,” is a duet with Grammy-nominated country singer Margo Price, and she and Williams go back a long way. Ryan Ross (The Lonely Wild) co-wrote the second single, “Lay Down,” and he and fellow Lonely Wilder Andrew Schneider are among the players on “The Fool.” Another mainstay of that band, Andrew Carroll, played on “Little Baby.”

So besides all the hunting — and the killer dancing choreographed by Monika Felice Smith in the video for “The Fool” — we can appraise Pearl Derringer’s music as robustly orchestrated Americana as filtered by ’60s girl-group pop, ’70s soul and ’80s New Wave. Behold the horns in “Lay Down.” The strings on “Little Baby.” The vaguely Men At Work (sans flute) vibe lurking down under “The Fool.”

Pulses might quicken, voices might be raised, tears might form, asking permission to tumble.

Pearl Derringer have not yet revealed a release date for the album, but we’d be a fool not to watch for it.

||| Watch: The videos for “The Fool” and “Little Baby”

||| Also: Stream “Lay Down”