Flat River Band release Every Dog Has Its Day (LP)

With a sliding melody to lead the way, Flat River Band slowly but surely push “No Hill for a Climber” out of the darkness and into the light of high definition, stereophonic sound in their new album Every Dog Has Its Day. There’s a resistance to the rhythm here, and yet the music has a flow that is as smooth as silk. Through elegant contrasts and refined harmonies almost exclusively, Flat River Band will share with us a collection of seven stories in Every Dog Has Its Day, each of which are as telling about the group themselves as they are the country culture this band aspires to celebrate.

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“Beauty Amongst the Trees” was one of my favorite songs from the album from the jump, and when deconstructing its basic melody, it’s worth acknowledging just how simplistic a track it really is from top to bottom. Flat River Band aren’t getting overambitious at all in this LP; if anything, I actually think they’re staying away from some of the overindulgences that their closest competition in mainstream country music have unwittingly embraced in the last half-decade. This is filler-free western soul that wears a lot of Americana influences on its sleeve, and in 2020, it’s as sexy and intoxicating a cocktail as we could ask for as fans.

Production-wise, Every Dog Has Its Day is ultra-lean and efficient, and due to its lack of excesses on most every front, potentially beholden to criticisms over the minimalistic approach its composers decided to take to its best moments. I don’t personally think there’s anything wrong with the way Flat River Band designed tunes like “John R. Brinkley,” the affectionate “In Another World,” haunting “Devil on the Side” and blunt-edged “Wings of a Rumor;” they’re demonstrating their interest in continued aesthetical growth, which is more than I can say about a lot of the country acts coming into Nashville right now.

The title track from Every Dog Has Its Day is full of instrumental complexities that I’ve come to expect out of this group, and frankly, I think it’s the most complete composition on the whole of the record. With a blistering bluegrass filter over the lead and a rebellious swing to the rhythm that gives me the shivers every time I hear it, this is the kind of song I’d expect to come drenched in industrial arrogance on the part of the players, but luckily, Flat River Band don’t exhibit such a negative attribute here – the polar opposite, actually.

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Emotional, relentlessly unguarded and accessible to us in moments that would just as soon be pillars of another act’s swaggering studio persona, Every Dog Has Its Day is a big step forward for Flat River Band, and in all honesty, the scene that spawned both the group and their homegrown American sound. Whether you’re a big country buff or only an occasional observer of the genre, this is an LP that belongs in your collection this January, and I say that knowing just how high an artistic standard fans and non-fans of country have got in these modern times.

Samuel Pratt