Highway Prayer

Bluesy country Americana. Twilight Hotel is a couple out of Winnipeg, Canada, and this is their first album. The two share the vocal duties and invite session musicians to round out the sound. This is all pleasant enough stuff; the middle of the album is interesting and well executed. The album draws on enough outside influences to make it hard to pin down exactly the genre of this. It is a really nice blend of styles and interesting enough variations of the traditional to pique the interests of listeners. No FCC violations.

1. Starts with male vocals, rockabilly sway, does not ever explode, ends with chatter (3:48)
2. Grooving blues, woman sings about ‘keepin’ them union boys off my back’, musicianship is strong (4:35)
3. Folky intro, develops into a percussion-less alt-country ballad, kind of sappy, strong vocal harmonizing (4:48)
4. Organ and acoustic guitar create ominous mood, female vocals, title track, no percussion (4:25)
*5. Electric guitar sounds almost like a spy song, percussion is loungey, piano and organ add to the mix, memorable refrain, “those that live by the sea start to rust/those on the highway fill up with dust.” (4:27)
*6. Catchy hook with low electric guitars, female vocals, sample in the middle of the song?, dark and menacing feel, great outro (5:45)
7. Prominent accordion, no percussion present, folky/country feel (5:15)
8. Again, slow accordion song with clattery drums and female vocals, interesting gypsy-ish feel (4:16)
9. Probably the most memorable male vocal part of the album, song does not build well, bluesy guitar complements the song well (5:07)
10. Opens with studio chatter, piano, guitars open the song, great melody, ‘Dobro’ instrument during chorus?...has such a catchy hook, and the rest of the song does not do it justice (5:17)
11. Clattery percussion, piano, and guitars frame the straight-forward tune (4:10)
12. Slow, melancholic, intentional ballad, a measure of pathos to close out the album (5:52)
*13. Sort of hidden track, instrumental jam of session musicians, Richard Bell and Colin Linden; this was Bell’s last recording he ever played on, and was a prolific session musician in his career (4:57)