Paperplanes
Rhinestone Republic
Self-Released
Paperplanes are four (more if they coax the piano player out) familiar faces from Long Beach who like Heartworn Highways and Bigfoot and who find a sound of their own between Terry Allen’s Lubbock and Guy Clark’s L.A. freeway. Singer/guitarist Micah handles his ragged high lines like David Lowery (“Hold On” or “You Can Have It All.”) and singer/bassist Pete takes shitkickers (“You Know Sin,” pushed cheerfully along by Rob’s understated drumming) and the songs that sound lowest and slowest, among those the abject desolator “Full Bloom.” Jerry Jeff Walker could have barely done better on a song that must take new guts every time they play: “Well, I been drinking quite a bit,” explains Pete, and between the pedal steel (Cliff Kane) and the gospel choir (which I think is just the band being very clever in the home studio) it’s just about a near-death experience. Rhinestone feels like a lot of sad songs—funny since these guys are crack-ups in actual conversation—but they’re different kinds of sad songs with different ways of being hopeful, and the tangles between the two make an album that could last a little while.
— Chris Ziegler