With her sixth independent release, Alison Pipitone combines all the elements that have made her previous studio recordings connect, adds the roughshod jubilance of her band’s live shows, and comes up with a roots-rock firestarter.



Fronting the finest version of the Alison Pipitone Band to date, Pipitone sounds positively unfettered here, as if she has grown into her art and can now wear it like a favorite, weathered and cracked black leather jacket.



On the surface, in the immediate sense, "Me and Miss Grimes" sounds like an upbeat Lucinda Williams fronting the Rolling Stones, circa 1973.



The guitars gnaw on the edges of the audio spectrum, bumping and grinding around Pipitone’s whiskey-throated intonations; the rhythm section establishes the deepest of pockets at the outset of each tune, then sways its hips in that immaculate space with a sly grin pasted on its face; the album’s production, handled deftly by Will Kennedy, is of the "less is more" variety, and therefore, everything stays out of everything else’s way. The result is a record that sounds great blasted at a level suggesting a lack of consideration for anyone in the immediate vicinity, but also, one that bears up to closer, less manic observation.



Pipitone has lassoed some of Western New York’s finest pickers, singers and skin-pounders here, and they elevate the proceedings at every turn. Drummer Pat Shaughnessy, late of



Doombuggy; bassist Jim Whitford – who has played with everyone in town worth playing with, twice, and has ventured forth to parry with the likes of Gurf Morlix and Peter Case, too; guitarist Graham Howes; and backing vocalist Natalie Howes combine to form a more raucous, rougher-edged version of Sheryl Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club. Unfailingly, they serve the song.



And, as ever with Pipitone, the song’s the thing.



Pipitone’s lyrics, she says, "start with a single image, or some imagery, something that comes fast, and then I follow the thread, and the song ends up being about something that has happened in my own life." These songs bear that premise out, as each commences with a particular, specific image that proceeds to act as a window into a broader world.



So album-opener "Hello Is Not the Word" starts with a sketch – "She moves in silence/Simple lines and plain" evokes Dylan and ancient Irish folk, a la "She Moved Through the Fair" – and then turns into a bawdy declaration of love and lust, to the tune of thick, rich, Stonesy guitars.



"High Stakes Table" – with a melody that may be the most lovely and lilting one Pipitone has yet conjured – begins with an abstract observation, before landing the listener in a more concrete, defined setting. "The Walls Don’t Talk" animates a brick-and-mortar building, making it a participant observer in the last days of a doomed relationship.



All of this is handled with a subtlety that is masterful, and oh-so-happily, none of it is the slightest bit pretentious. Pipitone doesn’t navel-gaze, because she’s too busy cranking out big, fat, distorted chords on her Telecaster, while the band kicks booty behind her. It’s cathartic, liberating, and smart rock ’n’ roll.



CD Review



Alison Pipitone Band



Me and Miss Grimes



[ Independent]



???



(out of four)