this is american music

"One of the hardest-working, most bone-shaking, original bands on the American roots music circuit." Jeff Biggers, The Huntington Post

If your last album had critics describing your group as "The Last Waltz come back to life as one unified band"' and calling the album "a master class in Americana"2 and "an album that exhibits how great American roots music can be"3, what do you do for an encore?

If you're Cincinnati's roots/Americana powerhouse Magnolia Mountain, the answer is simple. You write even better songs. You bring even better players and 
singers on board.

You release an album that raises the bar even higher. You release an album like
Town and Country.

As the title suggests, Town and Country showcases Magnolia Mountain's 
deft mastery of American 
musical styles and casts 
that stylistic net wider than 
ever before.

From the opening old-timey 
Appalachian vibe of "Black Mollie", through the bittersweet Americana lament "One Waking Moment", the 
Dwight Yoakam-style swagger of "Baby, Let's Pretend", the driving hard rock of "Set on Fire", to the Stax/Volt R&B-infused workout "Rainmaker", Town and Country bolts out of the gate with a
whirlwind array of American music styles.

Town and Country is full of Magnolia Mountain singer 
and songwriter Mark Utley's finest collection of songs 
to date, an 18-song double album of remarkable range.
The band's signature interplay of acoustic and 
electric instruments is on full display on the new album, 
even moreso with the addition of talented newcomers 
Jeff Vanover (guitar), Todd Drake (drums) and Kathy 
Woods (fiddle) to the formidable lineup of Bob Lese 
on mandolin, folk harmonica, and blues harp, Utley on 
acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and banjo, and upright 
bassist Bob Donis!.

Magnolia Mountain's trademark blend of gorgeous 
 2-, 3-, and 4-part close harmony vocals is made even 
 richer with the addition of Renee Frye, who now joins 
 founding member Melissa English on harmony vocals. 
In addition, the band is joined on this album by a veritable who's who of Cincinnati roots musicians, including Ricky 
 Nye (piano/organ) David Rhodes Brown (lap steel/slide 
guitar), Brian Hogg (sax), Mike Oberst (banjo), and more.

Town and Country reflects Magnolia 
Mountain's "big tent" approach to
Americana music with songs like 
the Byrds-meets-bluegrass "All My
Numbered Days", the mountain 
flavor of "The Old Ways", the 
country-punk scorcher "Shotgun Divorce" (a duet with Bloodshot 
Records artist Lydia Loveless), 
the gospel rave-up "Train to Glory", the menacing, dark gothic country of 
"The Devil We Know", the slow R&B burn and epic sweep of the 
heartbreaking "Cry for Me", through
to the intricately layered harmonies 
 of the album finale "A Light to
Bring You Home".

Included are haunting covers of "Don't Leave Just Now" 
by Cincy indie-rock giants Wussy, and "Just to Know What 
You've Been Dreaming" by Will Johnson of Centro-matic. 
Also featured is "The Hand of Man", the band's contribution 
to 2011's anti-mountaintop-removal-coal-mining complilation, Music for the Mountains.

This album is the band's third with producer John Curley 
 (Afghan Whigs) at Ultrasuede Studio in Cincinnati. Also 
back from the first two albums are the stunning album cover
photos of world-renowned photographer Michael Wilson.

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