The other day while keeping my iTunes on shuffle, a few songs from The Stands popped up, reminding me how great their album All Years Leaving truly was. Unfortunately, The Stands are no more, but frontman Howard Eliott Payne is still hard at work creating music. He has pushed the small bit of rock out of the sounds we were accustomed to from his previous band, leaving behind all the twang that was underneath. The results will delight fans of Ryan Adams and Aimee Mann, showing a fascination with old school Americana.
The twangy sound was elevated by working with producer Ethan Johns, the man behind the knobs on records by Ryan Adams, Kings Of Leon and many others. As of now there is no concrete album information, but Payne has made three songs available for streaming up on his MySpace page. After listening to “Dangling Threads,” “7 Years” and “You Can’t Hurt Me Any More,” I am definitely anxious to hear the rest of his new material.
