“And you’re obsessed with broken bones / Change the locks on summer homes / We still got in: / Sleep in the sunroom,” Richmond, Virginia’s Downhaul, a four-piece jangly, emo-influenced, alt-country band, whose intelligent lyrics and electric guitars steal the show. Their song-stories on their latest album How To Begin (a sort of reinvention of a band who’s had impressive momentum in the last so many years, nonetheless,) are setting-rich (“Both back in strip mall, church country / Dollar stores and coin laundry”) and dive deep into the pains and puzzles of life (“With time came root rot / Down at the base of the family tree”).

“Woke me up to ask / Some shit about enzymes / So I’m racking my brain for slant rhymes,” singer/guitarist Gordon Phillips sings on perhaps their most emo song on the album. It’s a look behind the curtains of an expert lyricist, rhyming things like “solstice” with “polls closed” and “well all those” with “Volvos.” It’s not all frivolous word play on their album, though, which deals with weather and water, relationships and resolutions, angst and exultation. One recurring theme is a broken branch: “Branch came down / Top of the night / Missed my shit / It split like chopsticks on the lawn.” There is a sense that, as confusing as life can be, we’re still lucky to be alive, to be witness to its beautiful poetic realities that are without cliche and ever new to those with eyes to see.

The music is also refreshing. After utilizing the recording studio to its full extent on past albums, Gordon Phillips decided to give each of the songs on this album the Campfire Test, “which is basically the idea that a song works if it’s good when you play it alone on acoustic guitar, without the rest of the band or anything ornate you might do in the studio.” These are stream-lined songs with catchy choruses and bridges, but it would be remiss to say that Phillips is doing all of the work. The band fuzzes and sparks like a live wire on most of the songs. Their rural roots meet an indie rock sensibility, sometimes like REM, sometimes like Pavement, but always their own particular style of rock n roll.

The catchiest songs on the album, like “Off and On” and “Tired of Trying,” satisfy the need for a good rock n roll chorus, but each of the songs is rich, when you get carried away by the tide of the poetic storytelling. Water is a theme on the record, as well, which starts off the album on “Blue Flame” with Phillips’ sense for mixed metaphors: “Down the stairs like a waterfall / Swan dive into the carpet.” Like rural Richmond, where nature plays a pivotal part in the culture and the living, they are a sort of force of nature as a band. It’s an album that is relatable, put together by a bunch of guys that are doing what other artists might try hard but fall short to get across. It’s good to see the small town guys winning, if the album has its fair share of broken bones and branches.

Order How to Begin by Downhaul HERE