17 Pine Avenue

Personnel: Michael Falzarano, David Nelson (vocals, guitar); Johnny Markowski (vocals, drums); Ronnie Penque (vocals); Christian Cassan (percussion).
Audio Mixers: Christian Cassan; Michael Falzarano.
Recording information: Forge Recording.
Photographer: Mike Tut.
After a 20-year hiatus, original lead singer and songwriter David Nelson has put together a new version of the New Riders of the Purple Sage. (New New Riders of the Purple Sage?) Longtime NRPS pedal steel player Buddy Cage joins Nelson for this outing and takes the majority of the solos, adding plenty of feeling to the band's cosmic country meets Grateful Dead sound. Longtime Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter contributes words to seven of the album's 12 tracks, bringing his customary psychedelic sheen to the material. Nelson's familiar high tenor sounds a little gruffer these days, but it's still a beautiful instrument and brings plenty of understated emotion to the music. He's always had a gift for crafting fine melodies and hooks that stick in your mind after a single listen, so it's no surprise that a bunch of these new tunes are as good as anything NRPS have given to us in the past. "Fivio" is a triumphant love song that's a reinvention of the traditional Irish tune popularized by the Clancy Brothers and features Michael Falzarano's chiming guitar and sighing pedal steel by Cage. "Suite at the Mission" is a cryptic meditation on life's vicissitudes full of dark humor; it's marked by more sparkling pedal steel from Cage and a world-weary vocal from Nelson. The title track is a bluesy shuffle crammed with mind-bending images that compares favorably to the Dead classic "Truckin'." It's one of the album's strongest songs and Nelson delivers it with a jaunty, insouciant air. ~ j. poet