She Brings Me Back to the Land of the Living

Noted acoustic guitar picker Cian Nugent has recently released an album of songs made with a band, like a regular rock musician. As luck would have it She Brings Me Back to the Land of the Living is also a beautiful example of contemporary Americana, it’s a style that evolved from folk and which largely American musicians have been honing for decades. This album might not win any prizes for originality but it’s the sort of stuff that is so easy to enjoy that you don’t care. Cian Nugent however is not American, he hails from Dublin, and this gives his work an angle that separates it from the usual fayre. His inclusion in a recent John Fahey event suggests he started out as a pure acoustic guitar player, which means he knows how to make an impression without using his voice and broader instrumentation. Both factors play into the appeal of this album.

The title is apparently a phrase that he picked up when caring for his mother Kathy when she was recovering from a stroke and suffering from aphasia, something that she would utter out of the blue and unsurprisingly it stuck with Nugent. Kathy also created the cover art for the album. She Brings Me Back to the Land of the Living is his fourth release since his 2011 debut Doubles and contains eight cuts that were conceived whilst the artist was looking after his mother; returning home to a less rock and roll existence helping him to process change and accept unexpected events.

Nugent doesn’t sound exactly Irish on the album and nor do his band, he plays guitar, Mellotron, organ and Wurlitzer alongside Sean Carpio (drums, percussion, Wurlitzer), Garvan Gallagher (bass), Greg Felton (piano), Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (viola) and Dan Lead (pedal steel). Ryan Jewell (percussion) and Jasmine Wood (‘mellowtron’) feature on ‘The Sound of the Rain’. Not a synthesiser in site. This is pure Americana from a place that many Americans consider to be ‘home’.

Album opener ‘Empress’ is a classic example thanks to the prominence of the pedal steel, rotating rhythm and keening guitars behind a mellow song whose meaning is far from clear, which makes it all the more intriguing. 

‘The Sound of Rain’ serves up more perfect pedal steel up front with the rhythm sitting back to create the lovely warm tone found across the album. It could be crisper and more open but then it wouldn’t have the charm that Nugent injects into every song. 

‘High Up Airplane’ is high point that runs to nearly seven minutes and builds up to a joyful noise with guitars full of light and the glory of distortion, Nugent’s playing keeping it just the right side of the invisible line between rawk and real. The song is once again enigmatic with the chorus line “A high up airplane and a low kind of pain”, but it gets its subliminal message through. 

‘Siamese Sharks’ could be a Lambchop song, it sounds very different to the other tunes here with beautiful guitar, tinkling piano and what sounds like a flute but comes from keyboard. Side two of the vinyl starts ‘I’ve been Down’ which has something of the Ryley Walker at his best about it, fuzz guitar behind shiny plucked electric high notes and a simple beat with a subtle bass line get things going and the way that Nugent mixes electric and acoustic guitars is very effective. 

‘Dogs in the Morning’ reveals the influence of JJ Cale with its laconic, laid back vocals and lilting rhythm, but the arrangement is a lot richer than you will find in that artist’s back catalogue. On ‘Pass the Time Away’ keyboards meld to create synthy sounds and slightly overwrought guitars add a psych vibe. Nugent sings “I need a chance to be wrong” in an ode to the slacker lifestyle with bass and guitar in counterpoint to great effect. 

There is a lot of good music made in this vein, but Cian Nugent has the depth of character required to make this fine album stand out. She Brings Me Back to the Land of the Living does what it says on the tin in an easy distinct fashion.

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