Trace

 (79 customer reviews)

From the ashes of Uncle Tupelo we've been blessed with Son Volt! This is one of the best Americana albums I've ever heard. I always preferred the Jay Farrar-penned Uncle Tupelo songs, so Trace is a slice of alt/country heaven. Trace is also easily the best of the three Son Volt releases. My favorite song here is the melancholy Tear-Stained Eye...beautiful! Steve Earle fans might recognize the opening track, Windfall. He was covering it every night on the El Corazon tour. Fararrar wrote every song on Trace except for Mystifies Me, which was written by Ron Wood(Rolling Stones/Faces). There really isn't a weak song on Trace. It is a seamless trip through loud distortion, pedal steels, and heartache ballads. Jay Farrar is my generation's Neil Young...and this is the best thing he's been involved with since Tupelo's No Depression. If you dig Green On Red, Neil Young, the spirit of Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle or intelligent, emotional masterpieces in...Read more

This album was quite a bit Left-field for me when I got it. I dug Johnny Cash a little bit, and some of the old school country dudes, but I was essentially an indie rock/ avante garde jazz kinda guy. But Trace rocked me. I would listen to it on rainy days commuting to school in my car, because it just felt so right. It became very private music for me, as I didn't want my friends knowing I was into something so "country". But I eventually began to see how this music was far more honestly populist than Rage Against the Machine or REM or Ben Harper or whatever else most college kids were digging. Son Volt just didn't really put on airs about being real; they were real. So eventually I got into Uncle Tupelo and Wilco as well as Jay's solo work, but this is the best of the bunch by my reckoning. Great songs, great singing, just really artistically sound. And excellent for rainy day driving. Actually it's raining right now. Bye!

Surrounded by records that take you stragiht to nowhere and leave you stranded, this record is like driving down a backwoods road in the summertime with the windows open. If you like your rock straight up with a twangy country chaser, this is a record for you. Son Volt's brand of country-alt-rock is going to invite comparisons to Whiskeytown and other like-minded bands, but the thing that sets them apart is Jay Farrar's ability to navigate between the sweet and the lowdown, then make it into a great song. Loose String, Live Free, and Drown are great uptempo rockers, while Too Early and Out Of the Picture are quieter moments. Like many of the record that I give five stars, however, Trace's strength is as an entire body of songs: this is an album I never get tired of listening to.If you like early REM, you should definitely give Son Volt a try, and Trace is a great record to start with.