JUSTIN Townes Earle has packed a lot of living into his 33 years.
Now clean and sober, Earle Junior is producing some of the most accomplished music of his career.
Absent Fathers (Steve Earle left the family home when Justin was two) is the companion piece to last year’s Single Mothers.
The music slips comfortably into Americana, guitar, pedal steel, loss and longing – nothing to startle the listener from their sulky reverie.
The ache feels real, and the impact grows with each listen. Earle’s voice lacks the character to tug the heart strings, and lacks the poetry of his illustrious namesake Townes Van Zandt.
Absent Fathers is the stronger, more solid and dependable of the two records (originally conceived as a double), and ebbs and flows more easily.
Some of the up-tempo numbers such as Why and Round The Bend swing most convincingly, while the slower, bluesy numbers tend to merge together.
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