This is a meticulous and measured solo album, all acoustic guitar and up-front vocal delivering simple but finely crafted melodies – the voice often following a guitar line picked from within a chord sequence. Harmonising vocals are the main additional accompaniment, for example on Bound To This World.
In many ways this parallel guitar and voice focus is
old-fashioned, but all the better for being so. Thunderbird is a perfect example: the simplicity of the two, with
Phillips’ vocal here and on all tracks crisp and full, plus piano a delicate
hint in the background. Even title track Walking
in the Green Corn uses the singular fiddle as the album’s most ostentatious
additional effect. The song has a country lilt that also presents the album’s
liveliest pace.
Think America and Ryan Adams [the latter especially on Fool's Gold], though this album doesn’t
resonate with melodies that instantly stamp their sound. An early favourite is second
track Great Horned Owl, again with the
simplicity of tandem guitar-line and voice. Third Buffalo Hearts is also softly penetrating on the aural recall.
Fourth The Straighten Outer is a fine
example of Phillips’ lyrical intensity, for example birds of prey are the smithy
of the straighten outer, hammer out the curves in a world that’s a rattlesnake waiting to unwind.
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