Album review: STEPHEN FOSTER & HOWLER – Southern

June 3rd, 2021 by petefeenstra

Thoroughbred Music [Release date 21.04.21]

With a career spanning Americana, r&b, blues, rock, country, zydeco, gospel, folk and even electronica, Stephen Foster has plenty of scope to dive into his southern roots for an album full of swampy grooves, strong narratives, potent hooks and a lived in vocal style that reflects over 50 years of absorbing every facet that southern roots music offers him.

A former studio musician who learnt his chops in Muscle Shoals with the likes of Percy Sledge, a fledgling Lynyrd Skynyrd and the great Wayne Perkins, ‘Southern’ is a conceptually titled album, with a good cross section of Americana.

Better still, the story lines are shot though with integrity and are voiced by an artist who you suspect has lived some of the narratives he sings, while making a living playing the music he loves.

And if the album doesn’t always quite flow as you might imagine, that probably has something to do with the fact that it comprises 6 new and 6 older songs.

On the upside, the emphasis is always on the song rather than the playing, but some inconsistent production values robs Foster of a signature sound.

At times ‘Southern’ sounds less than a coherent journey and more like an aggregation of loosely related songs. Perhaps it’s the price a fiercely independent artist has to pay for sticking to handmade music.

‘Cathead Blues’ for example, has a Roy Buchanan style vocal, but doesn’t deliver a requisite guitar tone to match the down-in-the-alley imagery. Tommy Miles’s ‘Biloxi’ too, has a lovely New Orleans feel with echoes of Little Feat, but again a muddy mix and a thin guitar line is only rescued by the gospel style vocals.

The sparse production approach works much better on the country tinged ‘Too Late’, which puts the focus on Foster’s gentle wistful voice and bv’s, making it a song with commercial potential.

He actually opens the album in a much tougher vein. ‘Can’t Take Me Home’ is muscular southern rock homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s late vocalist Ronnie Van Zandt, on which Foster’s soulful vocal teases out the dark irony of his own narrative ability.

He overcomes some harsh buzz tone guitar on the tub thumping ‘When You Love Somebody, as a warm vocal and a clever use of dynamics in a mid number drop-down pulls it back into the groove.

Foster adds a brusque timbre to evoke Albert Cummings on ‘Tied Up In The Blues’. It’s built round a powerful hook and neatly offset by some tremulous slide.

In fact, he saves his best production for the closing zydeco and hony-tonk tinged bookend ‘One More Link in the Chain’, with a gospel style call and response on a chanted hook.

‘Southern’ does enjoy a timeless feel, mainly because each stylistic diversion brings a new colour to the musical palette, while his lyrics have a lived in authenticity.

‘Little Things’ for example’, is all about the minutiae of his observational abilities as a songwriter, on a mixed back slide riff with southern tinged imagery: “Little things, bits and piece and memories.”

He reveals more about his Southern musical antecedents as the album evolves. The J.J. Cale influenced ‘Can’t Go Home’ is a signature exercise in simplicity on which he serves the song well with an additional light gospel influence.

He further emulates J.J. Cale’s swampy feel on an older track ‘Arkansas’. It’s not too far removed from the swampy influenced and straight to the vein hook of ‘Rock My World’, on which he cleverly uses a contrasting whispered vocal with a brighter percussive feel.

When it comes down to it, this album is all about equilibrium. ‘Southern’ is a slow burning album with catchy hooks and takes it’s time to fully sparkle via some layered sounds and Foster’s weathered vocals.

In short, you can’t rush thoughtful Americana anchored by deep grooves and given its character by colourful narratives. ‘Southern’ has plenty of both and is worth persevering with ***½

Review by Pete Feenstra

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