I could have sworn we have featured Harvest Sun before now but I just can’t locate them.
Musically they are very locatable, as exponents of Heartland Rock, the 1980s-peaking genre, characterised by tuneful, straightforward, blue-collar, nostalgic guitar based roots-rock of the sort pioneered by icons like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, John Mellencamp and Bruce Hornsby (not to forget The Range).
Songs that suggest there is more to them than mere entertainment. That they are somehow extolling the American Dream. Or apologising for it
It thus focuses on American life, often featuring themes of toil and sacrifice. The Waltons struggling to make ends meet on their farm during the recession but still turning up sparkling clean and well turned out at Sunday Chapel. The Clampetts, in an even worse state before they struck oil, loaded up the truck and moved to Beverlee. You get the idea.
So it’s a mix of rock, country and Americana and Harvest Sun does it to perfection. But so they should. They’ve only been around for 26 years although in different guises.
More important though is their approach to genuine songcraft with organic arrangements, where the human touch is obvious.
Songs like this, especially those with titles like ‘Cover up the tracks’, often suggest road movies to me. This one rattles along at the pace of a surgical strike on an Iranian missile defence system as it runs every red light on Route 66, the cops in hot pursuit of Bonnie & Clyde or Thelma and Louise or whoever it is that’s fleeing something in their past in the vain hope that a miraculous future is going to get out of a cab at the next dinghy one-horse town motel they choose for their overnight stay.
“And there’s always some distraction/some trouble down the line
Waiting in the shadows all the time”.
Perfect lines for a perfect pop song. And one that should be heard on Route 66 too.
‘Cover up the tracks’ is released by COMEDIA / The Orchard.
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harvestsun2014
