Wicked Twisted Road

Although named after an Australian badman, these Austin, Texas, roots rockers have put together a collection of songs hitting on the touchstones of Americana—honky tonkers, broken-hearted ballads and burning bar-band rockers. Willy Braun’s voice is reminiscent of Steve Earle. The band’s genre-straddling combo of guitars, fiddle, harmonica, drums and pedal steel are very much in the Joe Ely school of thought. The title alludes to his first love, but there’s also a bank robbery, candied noses and one rolled for the road, a seven-day bender on Shannon’s auld sod, tears for a broken heart you won’t get credit for and the road-weary recognition that repetition is what history’s taught us. The miniature die tumbling around in the CD sleeve rightly suggests that we should roll. This is driving-fast-across-Nevada road music.