CD Spins: Steeldrivers, Circe Link, Paul Turner, Paul Manousos, Mark Black

SteelDrivers
Reckless
Rounder
Featuring some of Nashville's top session players, The SteelDrivers start with a bluegrass base and then tap intor bits of blues and even edgy country on their second album, Reckless. 
The group includes Chris Stapleton (guitar, lead vocals, Richard Bailey (banjo), Mike Fleming (upright bass), Mike Henderson (mandolin) andTammy Rogers (fiddle), all fired up to be together again and not off separately backing other artists.  The album kicks off with the semi-title track "Reckless Side of Me" to suck you right into this rootsy whirlwind of skillful dazzle. Other stand-outs include “Good Corn Liquor” and the epic “Guitars, Whiskey, Guns, and Knives," along with the regret and acceptance found in “Where Rainbows Never Die.” 
Unfortunately, the album is also something of a swan song for the line-up, as Stapleton's now left the group, with the certainly talented Gary Nichols stepping in. But we're still left with a great record and we'll see how the songs shake down live as the SteelDrivers chug into their next phase.

Circe Link and the Discount Candy Family Band
California Kid
Circe Link is sassy and sharp with a sound that sometimes harkens back to the California rock sound of the '70s which means plenty of countrified elements delivered by her Discount Candy Family Band.  On her latest album California Kid, she dangles plenty of influences and her inspirations are obvious, but she's full of appeal, too on songs such as the the honky-tonk goes garage rock of "Salvation" and  the easy-rocking "Random Acts of Kindness."  
Sure she's obvious in the trippy "Getting High (On Your Own Supply)," but "Taking it Light" shines with optimism as she shifts to hopeful realist in the title track. Link and company go Southern for a groove in "What Goes Around" and pull off a musical workout for "Traffic Jam."  Solid stuff that makes one curious to see if she pulls it all off live. 

Paul Turner
Another World
Turtle Productions
Songwriter Paul Turner from Down Under is something of a mellow follow and Another World is rich with philosophical probing and turning inward and then outward to think out loud. 
Turner often paints his music in a watercolor dream-state as in the title song and later, “Love Is Wise," though some might question the idea of the latter. He mines the elemental contrasts of "Heaven and Earth" and then, "Blood and Water," then ultimately finds resolve or sorts in “Keep Fighting," with a theme that might've been anthem in other hands. But that's not his style, which is one of subtle invitation.  




Paul Manousos
C'Mon, C'Mon
Shock and Fall
San Francisco's Paul Manousos third album is more of the same, which is to say classic rock grounding with shades of blues as well. He certainly has a commanding gravel with whiskey voice. The problem here somewhat is perhaps to much reflection and not enough cut loose catharsis, as in the lead tack, "Getting Better."  
True, he mines soul framing for “Outside of Town" and turns in a nice cover of the Jimmy Webb song “Wichita Lineman," best known by its Glen Campbell hit version. But Manousos could use a few more rocking tunes such as the swaggering “One Eye Open" and "Long Long Way Back Home."  




Mark Black
Pictures of the Highway
Suma
A Kerrville Folk Festival (Texas) finalist, singer-songwriter Mark Black mixes wry humor, bright and dark, with storytelling set to lil' grooves on Pictures of the Highway. You gotta love a guy who sings "I Love You Rachel Maddow" and confesses, “Ooh, I Love My Coffee," the latter loaded with silly wordplay rhymes. The title song is more on the melancholy side, a mood he also can pull off and does again in "Mirror of Your Own Tears" as well. Black shifts rhythms in "For a Little While" and nearly bursts from the chipper buoyancy of "Moment After Dawn." From the sound of "Little Brown Bunny," he should consider making an off-center children's music album, too; day care centers all over the place could use his spry and often giddy tunes like this one.