What were once cerebral soundscapes meandering through a narcotic haze are revamped into a virtual Outlaw’s digest of love-lost ballads and raucous, whiskey-driven salutes to postponed sobriety. Other times, like last year’s To Willie, the band hits the open road and freely acknowledges those influences without looking back. A cross-pollination of outlaw country and druggy neo-folk, their sound offers a delicate melange of quasi-Americana, belonging to the sun-starved footpaths their influences only peered at and stopped short of. If Pride, their 2007 breakout and the sharpest culmination of their former selves, had a rotating door of contributors to realize Houck’s autonomous vision, and To Willie-a tasteful covers record that explored the various modes and moods of Willie Nelson-took in a stray road band to authenticate that signature Nashville sound, their latest, Here’s to Taking It Easy, fully adopts that band for an entirely fresh take on the Phosphorescent brand.Īt times, Phosphorescent tend to the brittle undergrowth of southern music. But for having such a penchant for the oft-unheard musings of the South, the band’s latest incarnation produces by far its most direct musical sound. Where for the average band a change of sound could mean a severe crippling, it’s the accepted norm for Phosphorescent.
“If there was a mission statement in Phosphorescent, it would be to follow whatever these songs are becoming on any given day,” says Matthew Houck at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium at the tail end of a long run of shows.įor the most part, Phosphorescent has served as a mouthpiece for Houck and, almost as a rule, they’ve been evolving for the better part of a decade.
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